Today, jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. This is really an incredible statement by the Nobel Committee and a great push for democracy and human rights in China. Liu Xiaobo is one of China's most prominent democracy and rights advocates, currently serving an 11-year prison term for calling for democracy, rights and a multi-party system in Charter 08. Charter 08 was initially signed by a small group of intellectuals and dissidents, though quickly signed by more than 2,000 citizens shortly after publication. It was intended to be a road map for how political change could safely occur in China.
Liu also stands out because of his strong support for Tibet and the Tibetan Government in Exile's position of autonomy. In 2000, he authored an essay titled "The Right of Self-government," which supported the Dalai Lama's push for Tibetan autonomy (Chinese version, English translation). Obviously this did not win him many friends in the Chinese government. Liu has also put forward a specific plan for improving the situation in Tibet, authored with Wang Lixiong, "Twelve Suggestions on Dealing with the Tibetan Situation." It was written just after the start of the March 2008 national uprising in Tibet, at a time when tensions were high and a massive crackdown against Tibetans was beginning. The article included in the suggestions:
1. At present the one-sided propaganda of the official Chinese media is having the effect of stirring up inter-ethnic animosity and aggravating an already tense situation. This is extremely detrimental to the long-term goal of safeguarding national unity. We call for such propaganda to be stopped.
2. We support the Dalai Lama's appeal for peace and hope that the ethnic conflict can be dealt with according to the principles of goodwill, peace and nonviolence. We condemn any violent act against innocent people, strongly urge the Chinese government to stop the violent suppression, and appeal to the Tibetan people likewise not to engage in violent activities...
9. We appeal to the Chinese people and overseas Chinese to be calm and tolerant, and to reflect deeply on what is happening. Adopting a posture of aggressive nationalism will only invite antipathy from the international community and harm China's international image.
10. The disturbances in Tibet in the 1980s were limited to Lhasa, whereas this time they have spread to many Tibetan areas. This deterioration indicates that there are serious mistakes in the work that has been done with regard to Tibet. The relevant government departments must conscientiously reflect upon this matter, examine their failures, and fundamentally change the failed nationality policies.
11. In order to prevent similar incidents from happening in future, the government must abide by the freedom of religious belief and the freedom of speech explicitly enshrined in the Chinese Constitution, thereby allowing the Tibetan people fully to express their grievances and hopes, and permitting citizens of all nationalities freely to criticize and make suggestions regarding the government's nationality policies.
Liu has even been a strong supporter of and advocate for Woeser, Tibet's most famous poet and political dissident. This essay (Chinese version, English translation) defends one of her banned books and includes strong calls for freedom of thought and religion in China and Tibet. Again, these are not actions that made Liu popular with the Chinese government.
As much as today's award is a great step in the cause of democracy and human rights in China, it has not yet changed the Chinese government. This is being reported on Twitter:
"Wife of Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo says police forcing her to leave Beijing: 'They want to distance me from the media.'"
Nobel Peace Prize winner the Dalai Lama has already put out a statement in praise of Liu Xiaobo's Nobel win. I would hope that President Barack Obama, himself a Nobel Peace prize winner, issues a strong statement in support of Liu Xiaobo, including a call for his release from prison.
Today is a great day in the cause of freedom and human rights. People often ask me whether or not freedom can ever come for Tibetans. I've always believed that for change to occur in Tibet, there must be change in China first. Liu Xiaobo is one of the leading advocates for democracy in China whose work makes the very possibility of a resolution to the Tibet question a likelihood. It is dissidents like Liu, Wang Lixiong, Hu Jia and blogger Han Han who are going to bring meaningful political change in China, a likely precondition to freedom in Tibet. I can't think of anyone more deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize than Liu Xiaobo, a truly courageous man of principle whose belief in democracy and freedom has the power to shake one of the largest countries in the world to its core.
Update:
President Barack Obama has issued a statement calling on the Chinese government to release Liu Xiaobo. Here is the President's statement in full:
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. [Emphasis added]
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Regretably all these decades, the mainstream support in China remained the honoring and nurturing of minority cultures. Mayhap this Liu incident should provide clear incentive to learn from the more advanced cultures of the West how natives should be treated.
Kudos to you Nobel, you just gave the peace prize to an American spy. Liu Xiaobo taking over $650,000 from the US government via the NED is in the public records.
Just check the web archive of NED's China grant publications that's now deleted.
Using history to argue your point. What about all the people the Chinese slaughtered? When I see someone of Han Chinese decent, I don't have an emotionally pained reaction emanating from a history lesson. I don't focus on the expansion of China under the rule of the Han Dynasty. Why? Because you don't live under those conditions, or espouse those ideals. Many people in the West repudiate the destruction of the Indians. We took a step in the right direction when we publicly espouse clemency for all, and work towards pluralistic societies. It's such a shame that China wants to repeat the past which we discarded and learned from. If it follows the same policies, then it will fail in the same way.
He himself was a victim of repeated r@pe, beginning at age nine. 14 The monastic estates also conscripted children for lifelong servitude as domestics, dance performers, and soldiers."
From 'The Tibet Myth'
http://www.michaelparenti.org/Tibet.html
Beijing should at least ban all child labor in monasteries, and insist the no children under the age of 18 may be subject to this so called "training" under any religious order, Buddhist, Christrian, Muslim or otherwise.
Gullible westerners with white knight complexes don't realize the reason why Tibetan monks appear so peace-lovin' today is because the PLA marched into Lhasa - before that, they were like the Taliban.
How do you think his or her treatment would differ from the Chinese?
How lame could that so-called "support" be if they couldn't even communicate with each other.
The fact is Liu hasn't interfered in any Tibetan issues, so please don't mix up these two things together.
Regardless, Liu does not have to interfere in the Tibetans issues to have an effect on them.
It takes about twelve brainwashed CCP trolls to:
1. First list the facts straight.
2. Then interpret them.
3. Then post them correctly.
The sheer ineptitude of pro-CCP posters on this forum would be laughter inducing, except that it's overshadowed by a circumstance of profound meaning. Please keep your CCP soundbites to yourself. If I want to listen to a program, I'll turn on the radio thank you.
Imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo won the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for "his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights", a prize likely to enrage the Chinese government. http://www.newslook.com/videos/256423-chinese-dissident-wins-nobel-peace-prize?autoplay=true
accounting of public officials to the people, freedom of speech.
But Charter 08 i is a document by persons who call for complete transfer of China into a capitalist society. It demands selling off of all land and public industries. This is a recipe for utter disaster and sharply increasing inequality of Chinese people. Look up the rise of Post-Soviet oligarchs.
Charter 08 demands for laissez-faire capitalism are especially dubious now, when corporate capitalist societies everywhere are showing signs of severe strain.
Some statements from the Charter 08 that are just completely wrong--
"The Chinese government’s approach to “modernization” has proven disastrous."
"China’s own development.... limiting the progress of all of human civilization."
Above jaw-dropping statements are just utterly completely unrelated to reality.
Again there are some good and bad ideas in the Charter.
But the reality is that Chinese society, under leadership of the communist party, has achieved miraculous achievements in levels of prosperity while maintaining domestic stability and peaceful interactions with the world. Room for improvement? Undoubtedly.
Xiao Bo's demand for total transfer to capitalism conflicts with the needs of Chinese people and state. We all know where roads paved with good intentions lead…
Fortunately, most of Chinese people reject their stance.
I think Chinese government should use a policy of ridicule instead of oppression against them. By arresting them they provide free publicity and make heroes out of them to some Western bourgeois liberal classes.
Folks don't realize that Chinese public can be complex. Angry at their local government, proud of their national standing, admire the leaders of the CCP, hate the leaders of the CCP, seek democracy, seek national power, admire the U.S., reject the Western media, and finally, object strongly to Tibetan independence.
Democracy will not mean a simple adoption of Western liberalism's pet causes. Chinese people in actuality are pretty complicated, almost like -- gasp -- normal people everywhere? Tibet will NOT be independent, unless you plan to go to war with a China fully supported by Chinese people. Have fun.
since the CCP can hardly ever come to an agreement for greater autonomy, i say democracy is the only way to true peace in china.
Liu is Han Chinese, Tibetan hate Han Chinese
Indians, Turkestan rebels, or Americans?
Seriously though, this guy has done nothing more than oppose the Chinese government based on Western imposed human rights propaganda. China had to close its doors in order to clean its house. All God's children need a clean house, and there are a lot of 'em in China! Developing an ideological direction while allowing western propaganda in is equivalent to attempting to clean a house with the door open and 100 MPH wind outside.
Now the Nobel Peace Prize has as much credibility in China as it does in the U.S. How did the Scandinavians get suckered into this mess!
Western human rights propaganda?
Long live the brave defenders of the cultural revolution!
Smash the notorious Dalai Lama clique!
Hurrah the liberation of Tibet by the brave and noble Chinese nation!
The thing that Obama, Liu Xiaobo, and the Dalai Lama have in common is that they, with varying degrees of success, try to speak truth to power. Which is the opposite, apparently, of what poster clip13 espouses.
Liu is a born agitator with a martyr complex. Out of a billion plus people, it's not difficult to find a few thousand like him. In times of chaos, people like these are good at stirring the pot (had he been born in the late 1800's, he'd have joined the Boxer Rebellion; in the 1920's, he'd have been a Communist revolutionary), but does he speak for the average Chinese today? Hardly, because most Chinese over the age of 40 can remember the decades of chaos the country suffered through because of agitators like these. They are in no hurry to return to those painful times.
The Nobel Peace Prize is a political instrument, based on a specific world view. It can't "shame" the Chinese into doing anything they don't want to do, because the Chinese never accepted the premise that Western values and sensibilities are "universal". Liu being awarded the prize today is no more a victory for Tibet (a pretty nonsensical declaration in and of itself) than Obama's prize signaled the end to US military adventures around the globe.
Liu is a born agitator with a martyr complex. Out of a billion plus people, it's not difficult to find a few thousand like him. In times of chaos, people like these draw crowds; had they been born in the late 1800's, they'd have led the Boxer Rebellion; In the 1920's, they were the Communist revolutionaries. But do they speak for the average Chinese today? Doubtful. Most Chinese over 40 still remember the decades of chaos the country suffered through because of agitators like these; they are in no hurry to return to those painful times.
The Nobel Peace Prize is a political instrument that serves a specific world view. It can't "shame" the Chinese into doing anything they don't want to do, because the Chinese never accepted the premise that Western values and sensibilities are "universal". Liu being awarded the prize today is no more a victory for Tibet (a nonsensical declaration in and of itself) than Obama's prize signaled the end to US military adventures around the globe.