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By Elizabeth M. Lynch, July 16, 2017

2010 Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Liu Xiaobo

This past Saturday, China Law & Policy marked the 8th anniversary of its founding.  But a commemorative birthday piece seemed inappropriate with the news that a few days earlier China’s only Noble Peace Prize winner, Liu Xiaobo, died in police custody.

Since the founding of this blog, Liu Xiaobo has been in jail. His crime?  His speech.  And in examining the Chinese government’s cruel response to Liu’s death, it is this speech that this aspiring superpower continues to fear.  Liu Xiaobo was not a murderer, a terrorist, and or even a revolutionary.  He was merely a Chinese activist, academic and public intellectual that for close to 30 years, used his pen to call upon the Chinese government to live up to its commitment to human rights; a commitment that China has agreed to by signing on to certain international treaties; a commitment that was written into the amended Chinese Constitution in 2004.

Liu’s most recent prison sentence wasn’t his first.  In 1989, Liu, who came back to China from a prestigious fellowship at Columbia University to support the students in Tiananmen Square, was sentenced to almost two years in jail for partaking in the movement.  When he was released, Liu lost his university position and his writings were

Liu Xiaobo (with megaphone) at the 1989 protests on Tiananmen Square. Later, Liu would be credited with brokering a peace with the troops to allow the couple of hundred of students left on the Square on June 4 to leave without bloodshed.

banned in China.  In 1996 Liu was  imprisoned for three years, this time in a Re-Education Through Labor camp, for a series of essays criticizing the Chinese government and calling for greater democracy for the Chinese people.  Then, in late 2008, Liu co-drafted a document known as “Charter 08.”  Modeled after Charter 77, the document that sparked the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, Charter 08, called for greater human rights in China, the end of one-party rule and an independent legal system.  Nothing terribly revolutionary. But for that, Liu was arrested, tried for inciting subversion of state power and, on Christmas Day 2009, sentenced to a harsh term of 11 years.  When he died last Thursday, Liu had only had about two years left on his sentence.  He hadn’t been heard from since his 2009 conviction.

But the silencing of Liu Xiaobo for the past eight years was not enough for the current regime.  When he was awarded the Noble Peace Prize in 2010, the Chinese government vehemently criticized the choice and placed his wife, Liu Xia, under unlawful house arrest, house arrest that continues to today.  The Chinese internet was censored for any mention of Liu and the state-controlled media was not allowed to report on his prize.

Liu Xiaobo and his wife Liu Xia in happier times.

And even though, according to his wife, Liu was diagnosed by prison doctors with hepatitis B as early as 2010, his hepatitis was allowed to fester into liver cancer.  It appears that that Liu was only given proper medical treatment when it was too late – when the antiviral drugs that slows down hepatitis B from becoming liver cancer would no longer work, when embolization of the tumor would no longer be effective and when surgery could no longer be used to save a life.  It was only when the cancer became truly incurable that the Chinese government permitted Liu Xiaobo to go to a hospital – under constant guard – and die with his wife by his side. But even in his dying days, he was still denied dignity; the state-controlled media released pictures of Liu in the hospital, maintaining that the state had only given him the best care.  They would not let him go abroad as he requested, likely fearing that he would use his final breaths to criticize the Chinese government.

The 2010 Nobel Peace Prize ceremony and the empty chair where Liu Xiaobo was to sit.

With his death on Thursday, the Chinese regime rushed to hold a funeral so that Liu’s friends and admirers could not make it.  By Saturday morning, Liu Xiaobo’s wife buried his ashes at sea, likely at the demand of the Chinese government so that it could ensure that a tombstone would not be erected and potentially serve as a pilgrimage site. Liu’s brother was paraded on state-run TV stating that the quick sea burial was the family’s wishes. Even in his death, Liu was used as a propaganda tool, with pictures of his shell-shocked wife standing by the coffin and mechanically lowering his ashes into the ocean.  Since Thursday, 1.4 billion Chinese people have experienced a news blackout on anything related to Liu Xiaobo. International news channels were pulled from the air, the state-run media has been ordered not to report on Liu’s passing and Chinese censors have been in overdrive, taking down posts with RIP and candle emojis as the Chinese people attempt to publicly show their respect to their countryman.

Thousands of mourners in Hong Kong hold a march in honor of Liu Xiaobo. (Photo courtesy of the Guardian)

China is the second largest economy in the world and most believe that it will soon supplant the United States as the Asia regional superpower.  But yet this is how it responds to the death of one critique in its midst.  A man whose only weapons were words and thoughts.  If China still wonders why it can’t successfully project soft power internationally, this is it.  While the Chinese government protests that it treated Liu with utmost care in prison, provided as much medical care as possible at the end, and permitted his family to hold a funeral, it still can’t ignore the fact that it imprisoned – and essentially killed – a man for his thoughts.  The last Noble Peace Prize winner to die in state custody was Carl von Ossietky, the 1935 winner who, in 1938, died in a Nazi concentration camp.  It’s never a good thing to be compared to the Nazi regime.

But even more troubling is that the Chinese regime’s suppression of Liu Xiaobo’s speech – both in life and in death – reflects a government that does not trust its own people.  Is Liu’s words going to cause revolution in the streets?  Probably not.  But yet they cannot be heard.  And in recent years, that distrust has only worsened.  Two years ago, the Chinese government conducted a nationwide crackdown on China’s civil rights lawyers, lawyers who use the legal system to protect people’s legal rights; nothing particularly revolutionary about that tactic.  And any civil society organization that becomes too successful, is shut down.  The Chinese people are left with no outlet to shape their own society and demand that their government live up to its ideals. Instead, the Chinese government distrusts anyone who it believes dissents.  But as Liu Xiaobo noted in the speech that was read at his Noble Prize ceremony, that enemy mentality will be a setback to progress:

Enemy mentality will poison the spirit of a nation, incite cruel mortal struggles, destroy a society’s tolerance and humanity, and hinder a nation’s progress toward freedom and democracy. . . . Freedom of expression is the foundation of human rights, the source of humanity, and the mother of truth. To strangle freedom of speech is to trample on human rights, stifle humanity, and suppress truth.

Impromptu memorial for Liu Xiaobo in Flushing, Queens, NYC (Courtesy of Facebook)

And Liu’s words and thoughts are not just ripe for the Chinese government right now but for all of us.  Especially as the current United States Administration focuses less on human rights.  On Thursday, President Trump issued a pathetic statement on Liu’s death through his press secretary. And only after he gushed about the greatness of China’s president Xi Jinping a mere hours after Liu’s passing.  It wasn’t just China who lost a hero on Thursday, but the world.  And the world needs the ideals of Liu Xiaobo now more than ever.  May you rest in peace Liu Xiaobo and may we find the courage to continue your struggle both in China and in the world at large.

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By Elizabeth M. Lynch, February 16, 2011

Human Rights Lawyer, Mo Shaoping

Last July, Caijing Magazine – an independent, hard-hitting financial news outlet in Beijing – convened its first ever conference on the status of lawyers in Chinese society.  Titled “China’s Lawyers at a Crossroads” (summary of the conference can be found here – in Chinese), the conference featured notable criminal defense and human rights lawyers and professors such as Professors Jiang Ping and Chen Guangzhong of the prestigious China University of Politics and Law.

Through a series of speeches (conference website here – in Chinese), the panelists seemed to agree that the road China’s lawyers have been forced to walk in recent years has been rough and full of pot holes.  Rights-defending lawyer (or in Chinese weiquan lawyer), Mo Shaoping, known more recently for representing Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, provided a clear analysis of the regression of the legal profession these past few years.  Below is an English translation of his fascinating, if not depressing, speech.  The Chinese original can be found here.

Ultimately, Mo provides some hope for China’s lawyers – a far-off, distant hope, but hope none the less, echoing some of the sentiment found in Bob Dylan’s “Paths of Victory” (trails of trouble/roads of battle/paths of victory/we shall walk).  In all, his speech provides an interesting insight into how one of China’s most prominent lawyers views the development of the profession.

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By Elizabeth M. Lynch, October 8, 2010

Liu Xiaobo

This morning, the Nobel Prize Committee announced the winner of its 2010 Nobel Peace Prize: Chinese human rights activist Liu Xiaobo (pronounced Leo See-ow Bwo).  But don’t expect Liu to be able to go to Norway to accept his prize; Liu is currently serving the first year of an 11-year prison term.

In all respects, Liu is perhaps the most famous of China’s human rights activists, at least internationally, and one of its longest serving.  Liu, an intellectual, literary critic, professor and writer, first emerged on the human rights scene in 1989 during the Tian’anmen student protests.  When the protests began in the Spring of 1989, Liu was at Columbia University in New York.  Immediately boarding a flight, Liu, a professor at Beijing Normal University, joined the students in hunger strikes on Tian’anmen Square.  But by June 3, sensing the danger of an impending crackdown, Liu encouraged the students to withdraw from the Square before the Chinese army was likely to violently suppress the student-led protests.  While many of the students did leave the Square, Liu’s pleas were for naught; on the streets surrounding the Square, an unknown number, likely reaching in the thousands, were killed.  After the suppression of the movement, Liu was tried for “counter-revolutionary propaganda and incitement” and convicted although ultimately exempted from criminal punishment. 

During the 1990s, Liu’s commitment to greater human rights in China did not waiver.  In the long tradition of the Chinese dissident, Liu took up the pen and during the 1990s, wrote a series of essays criticizing the Chinese government and calling for greater democracy for the Chinese people.  With his essays receiving accolades from abroad and censure from those high up in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the Chinese government detained him and sent him to a labor camp through China’s “Re-education Through Labor” (RETL).  RETL is an administrative punishment, not a criminal one and has become an important tool of the Chinese government to suppress dissent.  Even if China amends its criminal laws to be more in line with international standards, as long as it keeps RETL, the CCP will always have a way to suppress those individuals it deems a threat to its rule.  Individuals like Liu Xiaobo. 

But Liu’s current trouble stems from a document he helped author in late 2008 known as “Charter 08.”  Modeled after Charter 77, the document that sparked the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, Charter 08, called for greater human rights in China, the end of one-party rule and an independent legal system.  The morning that Charter 08 was to be posted to the internet, Liu was detained by police.  Liu was eventually arrested, tried and in December 2009, sentenced to a harsh term of 11 years.  In general, the average dissident sentence in China is between 3 and 5 years. 

Given Liu’s current imprisonment doe this Nobel Peace Prize even matter?  Most certainly.  First, it brings attention to the weakness of the current Chinese regime. While most news stories in the Western press discuss China’s growing economic might and its increased military muscle and portray a China that is sure to achieve global dominance, Liu represents the very real flip-side of that story – a communist party that is increasingly fearful of any threats to its authority and that in many ways is retaining one-party rule on a shoe-string.  Second, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Liu after vigorous protest and threats from the Chinese government.  In fact, the Chinese government’s response has been shockingly quick – issuing a statement that Liu is a criminal and awarding him the prize is in contravention to the mission of the Nobel Committee.  Given that many governments have shirked from confronting China on its recent suppression of rights activists for fear of upsetting trade ties, the Nobel Committee’s action reflects its commitment to human rights and acknowledges the importance of human rights in Western diplomacy. 

But most importantly, the Nobel Committee’s actions will bring greater attention to Liu within China.  Although famous internationally, with media and internet censorship domestically, many Chinese are unfamiliar with Liu and his quest for greater human rights.  While censorship of the awarding of the Nobel Prize to Liu will surely exist in China, because this news is so huge, stories will slip through the Great Firewall, and those Chinese with access to the internet will learn more of Liu’s work and the push for human rights in China. 

But the award does not come lightly.  If history is a guide, the Chinese government will likely increase repression on other rights activists in China in the immediate aftermath and abuse of Liu in prison is a very real possibility. 

And from the White House and last Year’s Noble Peace Prize Winner:                                          

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

______________________________________________________________________________

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                            October 8, 2010

Statement by the President on the Awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo 

I welcome the Nobel Committee’s decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize to Mr. Liu Xiaobo.  Last year, I noted that so many others who have received the award had sacrificed so much more than I.  That list now includes Mr. Liu, who has sacrificed his freedom for his beliefs.  By granting the prize to Mr. Liu, the Nobel Committee has chosen someone who has been an eloquent and courageous spokesman for the advance of universal values through peaceful and non-violent means, including his support for democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. 

As I said last year in Oslo, even as we respect the unique culture and traditions of different countries, America will always be a voice for those aspirations that are universal to all human beings.  Over the last 30 years, China has made dramatic progress in economic reform and improving the lives of its people, lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty.  But this award reminds us that political reform has not kept pace, and that the basic human rights of every man, woman and child must be respected.  We call on the Chinese government to release Mr. Liu as soon as possible.

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By Elizabeth M. Lynch, May 17, 2010

After a two year hiatus, the U.S. and China resumed their human rights dialogue last Thursday and Friday in Washington, D.C.  Don’t be alarmed if this is the first you heard of the Dialogue; the U.S. mainstream press barely covered it.

The U.S-China Human Rights Dialogue is subject to criticism and much of it viable.  China doesn’t send anyone with much power to negotiate (for last week’s Dialogue the highest official was Chen Xu, Director General of the Department of International Organization of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs); the Dialogue itself is conducted largely behind closed doors and it is unclear what is accomplished; and there are never benchmarks set to determine if these dialogues actually produce any results.

But last week’s U.S.-China Human Rights Dialogue, even with the little that is

Assistant Secretary, DRL, Michael Posner

known about it, is newsworthy; it reflects a changing interpretation of human rights in the U.S.-China relationship.  From what can be gleaned from Department of State press conference, the new emphasis in human rights appears to be almost exclusively rule of law.  While Mike Posner, Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, highlighted five different topics which were discussed at the dialogue (religious freedom, labor rights, freedom of expression, rule of law, and racial discrimination), the focus of the Chinese delegation’s field trip on Friday was largely legal.  On Friday, the Chinese delegation made the following visits: a meeting with Justice Sandra Day O’Connor to discuss rule of law and an independent judiciary; a talk with Cardinal McCarrisk at Catholic Charities’ Anchor Mental Health Center to discuss the relationship between the religious community and government as it pertains to human and social services; discussions with the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Services concerning labor rights and collective bargaining; and a talk with Thomas Crothers at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace regarding the interplay among law, human rights and food safety.

In addition to the focus of an effective legal system as a part of human rights, here are some other interesting takeaways:

Why discuss with delegates from an atheist country the role of religious organizations?

This is perhaps the most interesting and most puzzling aspect of the talks.  China, run by the Communist Party, is a self-declared atheist country.  In fact, all of the Chinese delegates from last week are admitted atheists.  To be a Chinese official, Communist Party membership is a prerequisite; to be a member of the Chinese Communist Party renunciation of religion (Buddhist, Islam, Christianity, etc) is necessary.   So given this fact, the State Department trip to Catholic Charities offers an interesting insight into the U.S.’ policy toward religion, human rights, and China, particularly in regards to Christianity.

While ostensibly atheist, China is one of the fastest growing Christian nations.  Even based on the Chinese government’s official numbers –which are likely low-balled—from 1997 to 2006, China saw a 50% rise in the number of Christians.  The number, including those that attend the government-run churches as well as the underground, unofficial churches, is around 70 million.  Although this seems like a large number, population wise, it is only around 5%.  So for many Western Christian missionaries, the name of the game is China.  Western Catholics and Protestants both know this and are in China, albeit undercover, in large numbers.

While China has a growing Christian population, the Chinese government remains ambivalent about its development – sometimes seeing it as buttressing its authority and sometimes seeing it as a threat.  Although religious groups and charities have been important in the U.S.’ civil society development, China is a long way from having any sort of religious charities that could support human rights or rule of law.

So why the trip to Catholic Charities?   Perhaps the Chinese officials requested this because they are sincerely interested in learning more about the role religious groups can play in society.  Or perhaps U.S. policymakers’ idea of human rights, at least in China, is becoming less secular and more religious-based, particularly Christian.  Unfortunately, Assistant Secretary Posner did not explain why the Human Rights Dialogue with atheist China focused on the role of religious organizations in supporting human rights and we are left merely to speculate.

U.S. Raises Issue of Liu Xiaobo’s Imprisonment, the Disappearance of Gao Zhisheng, and likely the Disbarment of Tang Jitian and Liu Wei

Assistant Secretary Posner informed the press that U.S. officials discussed many specific Chinese dissents’ cases during the Dialogue.  However, the only two cases he named were those of Liu Xiaobo and the very odd case of Gao Zhisheng.

Liu Xiaobo has a long history of human rights activism in China.  In 1989, he

Activist Liu Xiaobo

participated in the Tiananmen protests and has repeatedly criticized the Chinese government.  His activism has received many accolades from the West, including Reporters Without Borders’ Foundation de France Prize.  In December 2008, Liu Xiaobo was one of the organizers of the Charter ’08 movement, a movement calling for more democracy, less corruption and greater accountability of the Chinese government.  For these activities, Liu was arrested and sentenced to a very harsh 11-year prison term for inciting subversion of state power.  Even for China, the sentence is particularly long.

Although Liu’s sentence was harsh, the outcome was not surprising from

An emaciated Gao Zhisheng in March 2010 after a year in police custody

China.  Gao Zhisheng’s case however is just downright bizarre and Kafkaesque.  Gao is a self-taught lawyer and received much praise by the Chinese government for his work in public interest law.  But that was back in 2001.  By 2006, Gao had fallen out of favor and his work, particularly the representation of the repressed religious organization Falun Gong, was seen as a threat to the Chinese government.  In 2006, Gao was detained, arrested and eventually found guilty of subversion.  His three year prison sentence was converted to five year probation and he was allowed to remain at home.  After harassment, physical abuse and threats to his life, in February 2009, one month after his wife and child fled China for the United States, Gao was mysteriously abducted by Chinese police.  His whereabouts remained unknown.  The Chinese government remained largely silent in regards to Gao’s whereabouts until January of this year when in response to questions regarding Gao’s disappearance, Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu retorted that Gao was “where he should be.” Although ominous, Gao eventually reemerged in March 2010 at Wutai Mountain, hundreds of miles from his home.  Announcing that he was giving up rights activism for the opportunity to be reunited with his family, Gao went to Xinjiang Autonomous Region at the beginning of April to visit his in-laws.  After one night there, Gao was abducted a second time and to this day, his whereabouts are unknown.

In addition to Liu and Gao, Posner also mentioned that the cases if recently disbarred public interest lawyers were also raised.  This likely means Tang Jitian and Liu Wei, two public interest lawyers who were recently stripped of the right to practice law.  Both Tang and Liu merely represented

China’s increasingly hard-line stance against rights activists and public interest lawyers reflects a country that may not be interested in establishing the rule of law, at least at it pertains to non-economic spheres.  Raising these issues is important not just for the people being detained or harassed, but also to see how China moves forward in response to the issues.  For example, President Obama, in his trip to China last November, reportedly raised the issue of Liu Xiaobo’s detention.  However, the Chinese government did not lighten Liu’s sentence in response.  Instead, the Chinese government sentenced Liu to the overly harsh term of 11 years in December, a month after President Obama’s visit.  It will be interesting to see what happens to Liu Xiaobo, Gao, Tang and Liu Wei after the Human Rights Dialogue.  Does China care anymore about the U.S.’ criticism?

Even the Chinese know what the real purpose of Arizona’s new law

To create a feeling of mutual respect, the U.S. usually voluntarily discusses its own human rights issues during these dialogues.  In last week’s Dialogue, Assistant Secretary Posner volunteered Arizona’s new law against illegal immigrants as an example of a potential human rights violation in the United States.  However, according to Posner, the Chinese were not concerned about the law as it may apply to their citizens visiting the U.S.  Even the Chinese know that the law’s likely racial profiling will be for Mexicans, not Chinese.

How to Move Forward

Last week’s Human Rights Dialogue was only the second since 2002, after China suspended the talks.  Actually having the Dialogue itself is a major accomplishment.  Additionally, at the end both sides agreed to have another session in 2011, making the Dialogue an annual event.  For purposes of a continuing conversation, this is a good sign.  But the criticism that China merely plays lip service to the Dialogue is apt.  That is why it is important that during this month’s Strategic & Economic Dialogue (S&ED), to be held in China May 24 and 25, that high level officials, including the Secretary of State, raise human rights.  China places more emphasis on the S&ED compared to the Human Rights Dialogue.  But if the U.S. really wants China to move forward in human rights and rule of law, the topic must also be raised at the S&ED.