Liu Xiabao
Beijing’s conviction of Liu Xiabao will only strengthen the country’s emerging democracy movement, argues John Lee.
“There is a growing awareness within China that the Party’s apparent confidence and moral assuredness is a façade,” writes Lee, author of “Will China Fail?”
The regime prosecuted Liu in an effort to intimidate other would-be critics because “Charter 08 refuted the Communist Party’s central argument that the slow pace of reforms was preferable and supported by the Chinese people.”
Liu has been president of the independent Chinese PEN, the freedom of expression advocacy group, a grantee of the National Endowment for Democracy.
The democratic West should not regard Liu’s trial as remote from its own concerns, writes Perry Link:
China is rising; there is no doubt about that. But what kind of China will it be? A repressive China ruled by a wealthy, powerful, and self-protecting—but nervous and unstable—elite, or something closer to what the supporters of Charter 08 have in mind? The answer to this question will have repercussions around the world.
While Chinese dissidents appreciate that they must rely on themselves, Link writes, they truly appreciate foreign support. They are grateful for the US State Department’s call for Liu’s immediate release, but disappointed at the Obama administration’s “supine posture toward the Chinese government on questions of human rights.”
“Those who advocate peacefully for reform within the [Chinese] constitution, such as Charter 2008 signatories, should not be prosecuted,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a keynote speech recently.
The administration would employ “principled pragmatism” in engaging states like China on strategic interests while still raising the persecution of Charter 08 activists, she insisted.
But President Obama’s response to the challenge of authoritarian China is “a matter of defending the democratic value system of the West against a challenge for ideological leadership in the 21st century,” argues Wei Jingsheng, a dissident who served 18 years in Chinese prisons, and recipient of the 1988 NED Democracy Award.
Liu’s case is an opportunity for President Obama “to save face and stand up to the hard-liners’ untoward arrogance,” he contends. “Such a strong stance will weaken the hard-liners while strengthening the voices of peaceful reform within China.”
It is vital that the President of the United States vocally criticize human rights abuses and openly side with dissidents, writes William McGurn, if only to highlight autocratic regimes’ “lack of moral legitimacy.”
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