China, facing ongoing Western pressure to improve its widely criticized human rights record, says it is drafting a new “action plan” aimed at expanding democracy and strengthening the rule of law.

The official Xinhua news agency, quoting State Council information chief Wang Chen, says the new plan announced Wednesday will set forth “comprehensive and systematic” human rights goals as well as procedures for achieving those objectives.

Xinhua says the blueprint will be developed and supervised jointly by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the State Council Information Office.

China is regularly criticized for what Western governments say is its strict, authoritarian control over free speech, religion and political activity – key tenets of Western human rights theory and practice.

For its part, Beijing generally defines human rights in terms of improving living conditions for its 1.3 billion people, and says its record in providing food, housing and broad economic growth to the Chinese public is measurable and significant.

The 2012-2015 plan announced Wednesday is the second document of its kind. Under its 2009-2010 plan, State Council chief Wang touted China's abolition of the death penalty for 13 types of economic crimes, and improvements in education and political rights for women, children, the elderly and ethnic minorities,

But he also conceded Wednesday that China's national development remains “significantly unbalanced and uncoordinated,” and attributes those difficulties to wide gaps in income distribution, inflation, food safety problems and “unevenly distributed educational and medical resources.”

Additionally, Wang pointed to increased social conflicts spawned by “illegal land requisitioning,” and says China, in his words, “has a long way to go” before its citizens are found “fully enjoying human rights.”

Wednesday's commentary omits any reference to Beijing's recent crackdown on human rights lawyers, activists and journalists in key Chinese cities. Scores of dissidents have been rounded up and detained, in what Western analysts say is a government push to head off public protests like those that gripped parts of North Africa and the Middle East earlier this year.