Liu Xiaobo and Chinese Democracy
Originally published by The New York Times,08 Oct 2010
Congratulations to Liu Xiaobo for winning the Nobel Peace Prize – and to the Nobel committee for giving it to him. China has countless dissidents and people pushing for democracy, of course, but there’s a reason Liu rose to the top in Nobel estimations. He has combined relentless courage and persistence in pushing for democracy over 21 years with a broad vision of democracy, all tethered to moderation and willingness to work with Communist Party leaders.That moderation got Liu in trouble with some fellow dissidents, who argued that he shouldn’t win the prize. To me, it seemed ridiculous to object that he was too moderate, considering that he’s now serving an 11-year prison sentence.
I first encountered Liu in early 1989, when he was one of the visionaries behind the Tiananmen democracy movement. Some activists lost their moorings in that heady movement, but Liu didn’t. He encouraged the students in the center of Tiananmen Square to save their lives and retreat, and he negotiated with the soldiers to let them leave. He (along with the singer Hou Dejian) helped avert a bloodbath there.
After Tiananmen, many dissidents fled the country or were silent, but Liu continued to speak out despite arrests, warnings and continuous repression. And a couple of years ago he led the Charter 08 movement, calling for democratic reforms in China. It attracted widespread support and many signatures, and it terrified the Chinese leadership because of the parallels with the Charter ‘77 movement that helped topple governments in Eastern Europe in 1989. Charter 08 is what led to Liu’s latest prison sentence.
I also admire Liu for his open-mindedness on Tibet. In 2008, he signed a petition calling for more respect and autonomy for Tibet, and for real negotiations with the Dalai Lama. It was an unpopular and courageous decision in China, where there is a reflexive, nationalist hostility to the Dalai Lama. In pushing for the rights not only of Han Chinese, but also of Tibetans, Liu showed true moral leadership.
Today, Liu presumably doesn’t know that he has won the prize, and the Chinese government is trying to censor the news. But China is changing and censorship no longer works so effectively. It can ban mobile phone users from texting the characters for his name, but young Chinese are smart enough to use substitute characters. Word spreads, and young people are simply resentful at their government keeping news from them – adding to the government’s illegitimacy.
Americans often think that democracy will come to China strictly from a bottom-up uprising, but I don’t think that’s the case. Many Communist Party officials would like to see more democracy, and we know through leaked papers that the former Politburo member Li Ruihuan believed in free speech and free press. Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, who in the 1980’s was associated with the political reform movement, has lately picked up the theme, talking about political reform and democracy. We don’t know what that means exactly, but my hunch is that change will come from a combination of relaxation at the top and push from below – something like what happened in South Korea or Taiwan. And it will come suddenly and unexpectedly, whether in 2011 or 2020.
The Nobel Prize may, perhaps, hasten the process. Countries can be embarrassed into better behavior, and many Chinese officials are upset when their country is renowned not for its extraordinary economic achievements but for its political repression. The counter force is the government’s sense of insecurity, and its fear of unrest from both unemployed workers and from ethnic minorities such as Tibetans and Uighurs. In recent years, China has cracked down politically rather than opened up, and conservative leaders will continue to argue that the country can’t afford to ease controls. Especially for leaders shaped by the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution, there is a deep fear of turmoil and chaos that would leave China paralyzed and fractured. Deng Xiaoping used to justify dictatorship on the basis that China was a “dish of loose sand,” and that only a firm hand could hold it together.
But history shows that rising education levels, rising wealth, a growing middle class and increasing international contacts tend to lead to pressures to ease up. That’s true of all of China’s neighbors, even Singapore, and China’s leaders also have one important thing going for them if they do move toward democracy: they might actually win free elections. Especially in rural areas, Communist Party candidates might well win county or provincial elections, and the result would just be more legitimacy for the leadership. Jiang Zemin started competitive elections at the very local level and seemed to aspire to continue them at the county and eventually provincial levels, and at some point the party may pursue that approach.
The one thing I’m sure of is that at some point Liu Xiaobo will be treated in his homeland not as a criminal – an approach that shames China – but as the hero he is. On a visit to Beijing back in 2008, before his arrest, I telephoned to set up a meeting. He answered the phone, but the moment I said who I was, the State Security people tapping his phone line cut the connection and left it off for a while. That harassment has been his lot for more than two decades, and he has responded with grace, intelligence, courage and relentless effort to build a more democratic country. He richly deserves this prize.
http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/08/liu-xiaobo-and-chinese-democracy/