China says all the targets and tasks set out in a two-year human rights action plan were fulfilled on schedule before the end of 2010.

In a report quoted by the official Xinhua news agency, China's State Council Information Office said Thursday the cause of human rights in China “has entered a new stage.” A day earlier, the State Council announced it is already drafting a new human rights action plan for the next four years.

The claims come amid a harsh crackdown in which dozens of dissidents, activists and lawyers have been arrested or disappeared from view, often without any formal charges or information provided to their families. Western governments regularly criticize China for what they describe as authoritarian control over speech, religion and political activity.

However 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 action plan laid out in April 2009 stressed the need for improvement in such areas as the rights to work, social security, health and education. But it also spelled out goals providing for the right to freedom of religious belief, the rights of minorities and the right to a timely and impartial trial.

Members of religious and ethnic minorities in China, including Tibetan Buddhists and Roman Catholic followers of the pope, still complain of harassment and arbitrary arrests.

In its report, the State Council said 35 percent of the plan's binding targets and more than 50 percent of the targets concerning people's livelihood had been met ahead of time or exceeded. Chinese living standards have been rising rapidly under the government's largely market-driven approach to economic growth.

Xinhua said the report admits the cause of human rights in China still faces many challenges. It pledges to continue efforts to ensure more secure, dignified and happy lives for Chinese citizens.

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.