Liu Xiaobo, Chinese National Pride, Political Dilemma

Lionel Jensen

Liu Xiaobo, Chinese National Pride, Political Dilemma

Lionel Jensen

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Together we can work for major changes in Chinese society and for the rapid establishment of a free, democratic, and constitutional country. We can bring to reality the goals and ideals that our people have incessantly been seeking for more than a hundred years, and can bring a brilliant new chapter to Chinese civilization.

Liu Xiaobo, Chinese National Pride, Political Dilemma Lionel M. Jensen University of Notre Dame Together we can work for major changes in Chinese society and for the rapid establishment of a free, democratic, and constitutional country. We can bring to reality the goals and ideals that our people have incessantly been seeking for more than a hundred years, and can bring a brilliant new chapter to Chinese civilization. Charter 08 October 8, 2010 will forever be remembered as the day that the first Chinese national citizen received a Nobel Prize, this one to Liu Xiaobo, for peace. It is a tremendous honor for Liu (one of the eight principal authors of Charter 08), but no less so for his native country. His fellow citizens were undoubtedly proud of this achievement, because it conferred a dimension of international recognition China has long desired—the Nobel Prize. In the eyes of the Chinese government, Liu is a “criminal who violated Chinese law.” Yet according to his wife, Liu Xia who was brought to see him October 9, it was his jailers who first informed him that he was this year’s peace prize recipient. It seems that national pride trumps ideology, This troubling fact was made even more explicit on Tuesday when 23 retired Communist Party luminaries submitted an open letter to the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress calling for the elimination of censorship and honoring China’s constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech and the press. And, this is the painful nub of the issue for the Chinese government, which since 1992 has schooled its population in “patriotic education and socialist spiritual civilization.” It was Liu’s alterative conception of Chinese civilization and democratic emblems of national greatness, quoted above, which earned him eleven years’ incarceration last year for “opening slandering and inciting others to overthrow State power.” Because official media went dark, most Chinese were unaware of the Nobel announcement. Yet, for those who did learn on October 9, there were impromptu celebrations. These were met with police crackdowns and arrest. In Beijing, some of those posting comments or congratulations via Twitter or Sina Weibo were apprehended by authorities. All such commentary was erased and it has been for the last several days. But, fireworks went off at Beijing University. CNN coverage of the live broadcast was preempted: instead viewers saw a black screen of six minutes’ duration. China’s principal online information sources featured the latest “news” from the Shanghai World Exposition, and a host of other current topics. At first, it was almost impossible for Chinese to learn of the honor of their countryman as the Sina, Sohu, and other Internet portals interdicted all searches for “Nobel,” and “Liu Xiaobo.” On mobile phones his name was blocked. Still, those who wished to post their feelings about Liu’s receipt of the prize did so furtively (and successfully) by what Victor Mair has identified as numerous “circumlocutions” of the name Liu Xiaobo. Owing to proxy server access and popular will a great many Chinese netizens knew of this national honor that very day. As it is so often in China, it is simply not possible for the news to be repressed. By the evening China’s official “People’s Daily” acknowledged that the “lawbreaker” Liu had received the Peace Prize. Three days later the Ministry of Foreign Affairs inveighed against the Nobel Committee for “meddling in China’s internal affairs” and contributing to “the suspicion that there is a Western plot to contain a rising China.” With the house arrest of Liu Xia and China’s sudden withdrawal from talks with Norway’s fisheries minister, it is clear that the Chinese government is struggling mightily with what it can only understand as a challenge by foreign powers to its legitimacy. This is why they had threatened Norway in the first place, unable to recognize that the Nobel Committee is a fully independent entity. Rather than see—no, misperceive—the Nobel Prize as a disparagement of China and the Chinese, it is worth considering that Liu Xiaobo’s honor was bestowed in a spirit of recognizing how far China has come, having delivered more than a quarter of a billion people from absolute poverty and opening itself to the world. Awarding the prize to Liu is not impolitic, but appropriate conveying as it does that, the expectations for China are high. Recognizing an imprisoned figure of conscience in spite of threats; rather than a criticism intended to cause the government to lose face, could just as well be taken as the cost for China of being a great nation on the world stage. If this international honor is “criticism” then it is the kind that comes from respect and recognition. This is what many Chinese see and are proud to embrace. In its official reaction, the Chinese government, unfortunately, reveals an intransigence that places national honor and achievement beyond an implicit understanding that its own citizens—and the very world it wishes to join—already possess. 13 October 2010

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Liu Xiaobo, Chinese National Pride, Political Dilemma

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