John Metzler Archive

A Nobel Peace Prize hits the target

Why? The award changes the template concerning China, however briefly. The Trade Template dominates discussions on China, with disproportionate focus on the Mainland’s economic reforms and ensuing meteoric economic growth. Over the past fifteen years, reams of impressive gee-whiz statistics and the shimmering temptations of conquering the “China market’ have pushed human rights and the lack of political freedoms to the political periphery.

The other template — Tiananmen, Tibet, and Taiwan has thus been largely overshadowed by the economic rise of the Chinese dragon. The nervousness of western governments to offend the “rising superpower”, the dream of businessmen to “do a deal” in China, and the stoic acquiescence of most of East Asia to an impending new order has set the agenda. Thus Tiananmen has been largely forgotten, Tibet has a small but vocal lobby, and democratic Taiwan is being drowned out by the roar of the dragon.

Though talk of human rights issues has not totally been silenced, neither has it had gained prominent traction in recent years. Instead China’s successful hosting of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and the Shanghai Expo this year are the contemporary images of a “changed China,” and glossy images of China’s “peaceful rise.”

Not long ago, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lectured Vietnam’s communists on its horrible human rights situation but shortly thereafter failed to raise the very same issues in Beijing. That’s part of the same unnecessary deference which characterizes the Obama Administration’s tact towards human rights globally be the oppressors in Beijing, Burma, or the Sudan.

As the Wall Street Journal opined editorially, “In the last 18 months, Washington has capitulated to China on the issue of human rights in a way never seen,” at least since the USA opened diplomatic ties with the PRC during the Carter Administration.

Now Liu’s prize forces the human rights debate to the fore, as did a well-timed Nobel for Poland’s trade union activist Lech Walesa in 1983, the exiled Tibetan Dalai Lama in 1989, or Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi in 2001.

The Nobel committee citation described Prof Liu as “the foremost symbol of this wide-ranging struggle for human rights in China.” Indeed a key organizer of the 1989 pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square, he was already intimately connected to the already graying but bloodied Tiananmen generation. More importantly Prof. Liu was a key player in framing and signing the Charter 08, a human rights manifesto which calls on Beijing government to allow multi-party democracy in China.

Prof. Liu was convicted and sentenced to 11 years in prison for supporting Charter 08. This political manifesto among China’s intellectuals evokes the then-seemingly hopeless attempts of Czech dissidents led by Vaclav Havel in Charter 77, to have open debate and democracy in a stratified political system.

In fact the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) comprises less than five percent of the entire population, they are an unelected minority ruling a majority. Still China’s political dictatorship offers its citizen-comrades a decent lifestyle and has thus defused many political aspirations.

But as the Nobel committee stated, “China is in breach of several international agreements to which it is a signatory, as well as of its own provisions concerning political rights. Article 35 of China's constitution lays down that 'Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration'. In practice, these freedoms have proved to be distinctly curtailed for China's citizens.”

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the award to Liu was “a recognition of the growing international consensus for improving human rights practices and culture around the world.” President Barack Obama stated, “We call on the Chinese government to release Mr. Liu as soon as possible.” Well, we shall see.

The Beijing government, condemned the decision and called Prof. Liu a “criminal.” And with its characteristic bluster the PRC rulers made the usual bullying towards the Norwegian government, blocked foreign TV and internet stories on the topic, and acted with the same self-righteous arrogance it displays so well. What the People’s Republic rulers can’t control is the simple question why the people of Mainland China, despite growing economic prosperity, can’t have a say in their own political affairs.