Chinese reactions
“I don’t understand Norwegian. But when I heard 'Liu Xiaobo' and 'China', I knew what it meant.” The Chinese dissident Yu Zhang lives in Sweden. When he heard the news, he wrote in Chinese with shaking hands: Won! Then he phoned other members of the Chinese PEN club, who strive for freedom of speech.
Meanwhile the name Liu Xiaobo has filtered through onto popular Chinese chatsites like QQ and sms. Many people have twittered that they are so excited it makes them cry. Twitterer Yang Hengjun writes: many fighters for democracy in China should share in this prize. It is an honour for all of them.
According to China expert Frank Pieke from the University of Leiden, awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Chinese political prisoner Liu Xiaobo will bring little improvement in the position of other dissidents.
Professor Pieke says Liu may be treated a little better now that he has been honoured by the Norwegian Nobel Prize committee, but there is little or no chance of him being granted permission to travel to Oslo to accept the award in person. Nor will the Nobel Peace Prize bring about structural change to the Chinese political system.
Stable
“The system is very stable”, Professor Pieke says. ”The current situation cannot be compared to the 1980s, when China was very unstable and society was rife with discontent.” In those days, there was widespread sympathy for dissidents, but in the China of 2010 a large segment of the population is quite satisfied.
Corruption
Most Chinese take no interest in the few dissidents who fight for democracy and human rights. According to Professor Pieke, there is much admiration for people fighting the widespread corruption, but the human rights movement is a different subject. “I would even say that dissidents in China have become an anachronism.”
Pieke says the reaction of the average Chinese person to the news that Liu Xiaobo has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize would probably be: 'Liu who?’ Or else the award will be considered a typical example of how Westerners – in this case the Norwegian Nobel Committee – understand nothing about Chinese reality, and have a nearsighted view of the country. However, Chinese people may regard the award as recognition of the global importance of their country.
'Obscenity'
The official Chinese news agency Xinhua has remained silent on the issue so far. The foreign ministry did react: it called the award ‘an obscenity’. Professor Pieke says that the ministry’s reaction shows that the government is playing its fixed role in the ‘people’s theatre’.
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The award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo is a tribute to prisoners of conscience everywhere. Whether the average Chinese person knows about Mr. Liu or not or whether they think dissidents are important in contemporary society is immaterial. Just as the vast majority of Germans knew the Nazis were a criminal regime and did nothing, the fact most people tolerate the criminals who run China, does not confer any legitimacy upon them. Mr. Liu is standing up to the awesome might of the state at great personal risk. He fights for what is right and he deserves our admiration. While the vast majority of people can by bought off with a cheap refrigator or a TV, thankfully someone still knows the meaning of decency. The government of China runs a vast systems of concentration camps, which extract slave labour in exchange for a near starvation diet. As someone from Hong Kong, I live on the edge of a vulcano. In 2047, Hong Kong's statues as a Special Administrative Region, which guarantees freedom of press, rule of law and human rights, will expire. The people of Hong Kong have a vested interest in pushing for political improvements. We don't want the Chinese Gulag to come here. Congraduations to the Liu Xiaobo, Patriot of the Chinese Nation!
Wolfgang Jaeger
9 October 2010 - 7:57am
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The question here is: What has he done for peace? Dissidents are agitators, their sole goal is to cause unrest.So he and others like him probably deserve the political dissident prizes of the highest kind, but cetainly not the Nobel Peace Prize.I think Nobel committee has lost sight of its objectives.Year after year it gives out prizes to make political points, not to recognise anybody's achievements.Like last yar..when they handed out one to Obama merely to silence millions of straight thinking Americans.I don't think this is what Alfred Nobel intended.He was a pragmatist, not a Utopianist like the people who are in the committee right now.
I agree with you
The question here is: What has he done for peace? Dissidents are agitators, their sole goal is to cause unrest.So he and others like him probably deserve the political dissident prizes of the highest kind, but cetainly not the Nobel Peace Prize.I think Nobel committee has lost sight of its objectives.Year after year it gives out prizes to make political points, not to recognise anybody's achievements.Like last yar..when they handed out one to Obama merely to silence millions of straight thinking Americans.I don't think this is what Alfred Nobel intended.He was a pragmatist, not a Utopianist like the people who are in the committee right now.
If the announcement of the Nobel award to Liu Xiaobo is an anachronism why has the Chinese government blocked all internet references to him for Chinese mainland users? If he doesn't matter, why is the Chinese government afraid to permit any internet discussion about him? If the average mainland Chinese is inclined to say "Liu who?" that's because they are ignorant, many of whom it seems prefer to stay that way.
If the announcement of the Nobel award to Liu Xiaobo is an anachronism why has the Chinese governement blocked all internet references to him for Chinese mainland users? If he doesn't matter, why is the Chinese government afraid to permit any internet discussion about him? If the average mainland Chinese is inclined to say "Liu who?" that's because they are ignorant, many of whom it seems prefer to stay that way.
Very true! Supporting dissidents of other countries has become a fashion of sorts. And this peace prize to however deserving Liu is just to embarass China. Not that China has a very sincere relationship with India, it is more with Pakistan, and both want unrest in India and are supporting our dissidents. So what you throw upwards, comes back to you...
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