Do supporters of Nobel winner Liu Xiaobo really know what he stands for?
In recent weeks, Nobel prizewinner Liu Xiaobo's politics have been reduced t
o a story of a heroic individual who upholds human rights and democracy. His
views are largely omitted to avoid a discussion about them, resulting in a
one-sided debate. Within three weeks, in Hong Kong, for example, more than 5
00 articles were published about Liu, of which only 10 were critical of the
man or peace prize.
In China, before the award, most people neither knew nor cared about Liu, wh
ile, according to Andrew Jacobs, writing in the International Herald Tribune
, an "official survey of university students taken since the prize was award
ed found that 85% said they knew nothing about Mr Liu and Charter '08." A No
rwegian Sinologist has elicited comments from Chinese people and indicated t
hat younger Chinese still do not care about Liu. Older Chinese intellectuals
are interested in discussing the award, but many do not think Liu is an app
ropriate recipient.
Imprisoning Liu was entirely unnecessary. If Liu's politics were well-known,
most people would not favour him for a prize, because he is a champion of w
ar, not peace. He has endorsed the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, and he
applauded the Vietnam and Korean wars retrospectively in a 2001 essay. All
these conflicts have entailed massive violations of human rights. Yet in his
article Lessons from the Cold War, Liu argues that "The free world led by t
he US fought almost all regimes that trampled on human rights … The major w
ars that the US became involved in are all ethically defensible." During the
2004 US presidential election, Liu warmly praised George Bush for his war e
ffort against Iraq and condemned Democratic party candidate John Kerry for n
ot sufficiently supporting the US's wars:
[T]he outstanding achievement made by Bush in anti-terrorism absolutely cann
ot be erased by Kerry's slandering … However much risk must be endured in s
triking down Saddam Hussein, know that no action would lead to a greater ris
k. This has been proven by the second world war and September 11! No matter
what, the war against Saddam Hussein is just! The decision by President Bush
is right!
Liu has also one-sidedly praised Israel's stance in the Middle East conflict
. He places the blame for the Israel/Palestine conflict on Palestinians, who
he regards as "often the provocateurs".
Liu has also advocated the total westernisation of China. In a 1988 intervie
w he stated that "to choose westernisation is to choose to be human". He als
o faulted a television documentary, He Shang, or River Elegy, for not thorou
ghly criticising Chinese culture and not advocating westernisation enthusias
tically enough: "If I were to make this I would show just how wimpy, spinele
ss and fucked-up [weisuo, ruanruo, caodan] the Chinese really are". Liu cons
idered it most unfortunate that his monolingualism bound him in a dialogue w
ith something "very benighted [yumei] and philistine [yongsu]," the Chinese
cultural sphere. Harvard researcher Lin Tongqi noted that an early 1990s boo
k by Liu contains "pungent attacks on the Chinese national character". In a
well-known statement of 1988, Liu said:
It took Hong Kong 100 years to become what it is. Given the size of China, c
ertainly it would need 300 years of colonisation for it to become like what
Hong Kong is today. I even doubt whether 300 years would be enough.
Affirming this sentiment in Open magazine in 2006, he added that progress in
China depends on westernisation and the more westernisation, the more progr
ess. While his supporters excuse Liu's pro-colonialism as a provocation, it
logically aligns with his support for total westernisation and US-led regime
changing wars.
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Liu, in his "Charter '08", called for a Western-style political system in Ch
ina and privatisation of all enterprises and farm land. Not surprisingly, th
e organisations he has headed received financial support from the US governm
ent's National Endowment for Democracy. Studies show, however, that where tr
ansitions to electoral democracy occur in countries with low levels of avera
ge wealth, the rule of law does not necessarily follow, but instability and
low levels of development do. Neither does electoral democracy deliver good
governance, nor even sustain itself under such conditions.
Nowhere in the post-communist or developing world has there been the fair pr
ivatisation Liu claims to seek. Privatisation in eastern Europe often led to
massive thefts of public property by oligarchs and became deeply unpopular,
with strong majorities of people in all post-Communist countries wanting it
s revision. Privatisation is also disliked in India, Latin America and China
itself, while studies of privatisation in many parts of the world show it c
an have a deleterious effect on development. Land privatisation in China wou
ld rapidly create land concentration and landless peasants.
Forty years ago, a Nobel prize committee upheld formerly imprisoned writer A
lexander Solzhenitsyn as a symbol of freedom against the Soviet regime. As w
ith Liu, it may have been unaware of or chose to ignore Solzhenitsyn's class
ically reactionary views: his own version of authoritarianism, an animus tow
ard Jews, denunciation of the US for not pursuing the war in Vietnam more vi
gorously, condemnation of Amnesty International as too liberal, and support
for the Spanish fascist dictator Francisco Franco.
The Nobel peace prize is a prize for politics of certain kind. The Norwegian
Nobel Institute director has noted that the Nobel Committee has most often
selected "those who had spoken out ... against the Communist dictators in Mo
scow and the dictators in Beijing." French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre reco
gnized the Nobel prizes' role in the Cold war and refused to accept one in 1
964. He stated: "In the present situation, the Nobel Prize stands objectivel
y as a distinction reserved for the writers of the West or the rebels of the
East." That role has been continued with Liu's prize.
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