
I Have No Enemies: My Final Statement (2009) - z3t1
https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2010/xiaobo-lecture.html
======
larrysalibra
If aren't sure who Liu Xiaobo is or want to learn more, this essay by China
expert Perry Link is excellent: [http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2017/07/13/the-
passion-of-liu-x...](http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2017/07/13/the-passion-of-
liu-xiaobo/)

~~~
dis-sys
Such censored view is not good for anyone.

"It took Hong Kong 100 years to become what it is. Given the size of China,
certainly 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." Liu
Xiaobo made himself quite clear back in the 1980s. The in 1996, he further
argued that

"progress in China depends on westernisation and the more westernisation, the
more progress."

Western, independent source here:
[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/dec/15/nobel-...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/dec/15/nobel-
winner-liu-xiaobo-chinese-dissident)

I thought China should be allowed to preserve it own culture and independence.
Liu seemed to hold a quite different idea.

btw, it must be quite a shock for you to know such fact. I mean please feel
free to downvote if you agree with Liu's very repressive view on how China
should be colonized by the west for 300 years to get better argument. The
whole "progress in China depends on westernisation" also sounds like a
cultural genocide to me.

~~~
jackvalentine
Is he actually arguing that China _should_ be colonised? Or just making a
comparison with Hong Kong's development and hypothesizing how long it'd take
the mainland under similar yoke and rule.

~~~
ideal0227
> 三百年殖民地。香港一百年殖民地变成今天这样，中国那么大，当然需要三百年殖民地，才会变成今天香港这样，三百年够不够，我还有怀疑。

I am a decently educated Chinese native speaker. The quoted Chinese sentence
from Liu is not acceptable to me. I do not think it is a direct comparison
against HongKong.

I am fine with him arguing about changing the political situation of China or
whatsoever. And, actually, the discussion on that should be more open.
However, I cannot agree on his view about changing China through colonial no
matter what he tries to justify. And I believe no rational Chinese people will
agree him on this.

~~~
pavlov
Do you agree with his jail sentence and permanent house arrest?

~~~
dis-sys
how about just focus on the core issue here? the core issue here is how come
someone with such an extremist style view got awarded a nobel prize.

or you may want to explain to me how this whole "China needs to be colonized
by the west for 300 years" crap is not extremist style.

~~~
jaggederest
That is not even close to the core issue.

The core issue is that the Chinese government locked someone up for stating an
opinion. An opinion not much different in substance than then ones you are
stating in this thread.

Would you consider it just for you to be imprisoned for your views alone? I
would not, and I think that is also true for other people.

~~~
echaozh
Would you consider it just for Snowden to be exiled out of the country?

Would you consider it just for Assange to be under house arrest in an Embassy?

Would you consider it just for Liu Xiaobo to be under house arrest at his own
home?

Well, IMHO, all 3 incidents are unjust. However, they all happened.

Interestingly, Liu Xiaobo earned a Nobel price, but Snowden didn't. Not sure
what would happen if the Chinese government awarded Snowden or Assange some
special prizes.

~~~
pavlov
The difference is this: Assange and Snowden exposed state secrets. If Liu had
done that, he would have been executed a long time ago.

I don't agree with Snowden's treatment either, but it's important not to
confuse freedom of speech with dissemination of confidential information.

------
utbabya
FYI, there's an interesting commentator machine operating in China for public
manipulation
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party)

I'm not ruling out genuine believer of their opinions but there's also this
possibility.

They're getting pretty sophisticated and sometimes instead of supporting the
government, their goal would be disinformation, induce hatred (i.e. troll) to
divide and conquer.

If you're interested in the perspective of some HongKongness (myself included)
I'd recommend this film
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Years_(2015_film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Years_\(2015_film\))

It's so touching to me because it's dystopian but really just exaggeration
what I perceive in real life that how the changes are creeping in during
recent years, continual development of public swaying psyops is just one of
them.

Not that I like Britain nor UN either as they both dropped the ball of
enforcing the Sino-British Joint Declaration or giving HongKong a chance to
decide its own fate as other post-colony.

~~~
dis-sys
This thread has nothing relate to Hong Kong. Could you please stop introducing
such completely off-topic stuff? Thank you.

~~~
utbabya
Well there's comparison of cultural and citizen quality between HongKong an
China in some heated debates here.

Or do you think my comment should be censored?

------
maaaats
As an aside, even though the Norwegian government has nothing to do with the
prize, China quickly ended lots of relations with Norway, losing Norwegian
companies billions.

Now, the government is too afraid to publicly speak about Liu, to not sour
what they have spent years trying to fix. Weak.

~~~
hunglee2
The weakness is democracy. The Norwegian governing party - whoever it is - now
knows that China's default position to perceived outside interference is
disproportionate economic punishment, leading to pressure on the living
standards of the voters they depend on. Autocratic states have discovered a
critical weakness in the representative democracy and there's little we can
currently do about it

~~~
pmontra
What if Norway was another autocratic state? Economic punishment could have
made them bent anyway. Maybe your point is that autocracies bend less than
democracies and you could be right: dictators usually don't care about
economic sanctions because what they care about is to stay in charge. A poor
or wealthy country doesn't matter much. Actually sanctions help them to build
a narrative of world against the country and strengthen their grip.

I'm not aware of what happened in Norway after those Chinese sanctions. They
could democratically decided that it was ethically worth losing those
businesses. Any Norwegian people here?

~~~
comradeHulaHula
Norwegian here!

I'd like to take the opportunity to say that the feeling at the time was that
we got left out in the storm by ourselves by other western countries once the
Chinese sanctions came on. In the direct aftermath everyone else just kinda
looked the other way, and in the long run there is no way a tiny country like
us can withstand that pressure over time.

~~~
lr4444lr
Do you and your countrymen ever doubt whether the potential political toxicity
of the prize is worth it for Norway to maintain sole administration? Has there
ever been talk of transferring it to something like a multi-country consortium
under the U.N.?

~~~
epmaybe
I like this plan, but I'd imagine in Alfred Nobel's will there is something
requiring that the peace prize be awarded only in Norway.

------
gentro
You ever get the feeling this Nobel Prize and the western media's fawning
coverage of Liu Xiaobo is really just about westerners making themselves feel
better?

China will get democracy one day. It will be because a large swath of Chinese
people want it. Although there have been some high profile dissidents in China
over the last 30 years, including Liu Xiaobo and the 1989 students, most
Chinese are probably not ready for their message of political openness.
They're still focused on lower levels of the Maslow hierarchy like shelter and
food.

These dissidents have the bad luck of poor timing. In another 30 or 40 years
when China is fully developed, their ideas may be well accepted among
citizenry and party reformers.

~~~
pavanred
We can't just simply discount the effect of the Nobel prize and world media
coverage of Liu Xiaobo. I am reading the book Perfect Hostage by Justin
Wintle, it's about the life of Aung San Suu Kyi. And, yes there were a lot of
Burmese people and their leader who fought fearlessly for democracy, but I
think in addition to that there is a real sizable effect of Suu Kyi winning
the Nobel peace prize and world media coverage following it. Whether you like
to attribute it or not, I think the effect is very real. Suu Kyi was house
arrested for few years when she was awarded the Nobel prize, this was followed
by many other awards and recognition, the world media coverage about Suu Kyi
and their cause increased and so did the general awareness about the plight of
the people and their struggle, and so did the diplomatic pressure from other
countries, sanctions, embargoes etc. I know the situation of present day China
and Burma in the early 90s is very different but I think the point still
stands.

~~~
jdietrich
Suu Kyi gained her freedom, won an election, then ignored a genocide.

Democracy is not magic. A failing state is a failing state, regardless of the
system of government. Great rebels rarely make for great politicians.

[http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/rohingya-
muslim...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/rohingya-muslims-
burma-myanmar-aung-san-suu-kyi-legitimising-genocide-a7439151.html)
[https://theintercept.com/2017/04/13/burmese-nobel-prize-
winn...](https://theintercept.com/2017/04/13/burmese-nobel-prize-winner-aung-
san-suu-kyi-has-turned-into-an-apologist-for-genocide-against-muslims/)

~~~
pavanred
Exactly my point.

Myanmar got their freedom. Now, there is another problem and the current
establishment isn't doing enough. And, what you shared is, again, the world
media covering these lapses. Suu Kyi did a lot right in the fight for freedom,
but doesn't make her infallible. Perhaps some one else from within Myanmar
will rise up and champion the cause. And, the world media and external
entities do their part to help in terms of coverage, spreading awareness,
diplomatic pressure, sanctions etc. We cannot just brush off the efforts of
the latter saying they are doing it just to please themselves.

------
throwa34943way
To some in the west, China is a land of opportunities, a booming economy with
tech giants and a supply chain for the industrial world. To others it's a
bloody dictatorship that assassinated thousands of people for the sole crime
of speaking their mind in 1989.

To me it's the embodiment of the hypocrisy of the west when it comes to the
defense human rights. Let's be frank, we didn't abolish slavery, we just
outsourced it to make it more acceptable. It's also a proof that capitalism
doesn't need democracy or free-speech to function.

~~~
factsaresacred
> Let's be frank, we didn't abolish slavery, we just outsourced it to make it
> more acceptable.

As Joan Robinson said, "the misery of being exploited by capitalists is
nothing compared to the misery of not being exploited at all."

Being paid for work _you do not have to do_ is not slavery. You see we built
this thing called civilization whereby instead of starving when crops fail,
dying at age 30 with dysentery and living in fear of being bludgeoned to death
by a rival clan, we can exchange our labour for security, health and
resources.

It's not perfect but if Capitalism ain't pleasing you then ask the person
working that outsourced job what their grandparents thought of Communism, an
ideology that crushed the very soul of China and brought misery, mass death
and madness.

Or just ask them what work they'd be doing if Capitalism wasn't keeping them
enslaved in jobs.

~~~
codefined
As a point, what are your thoughts of a Meritocracy as a paradigm to follow?
Nationalise everything, pay everyone an equal amount, to begin with, but based
on their "merits" boost their pay. Seems to have all the advantages of
capitalism, without the perceived negatives of communism equally a
dictatorship or "fat cats", which could be managed by the government.

~~~
factsaresacred
It's easier to model countries with sane wealth distribution - Sweden, Germany
etc. Allow everyone to get rich as they wish, but tax them.

In return you get to live in a society with high trust, little crime and good
social services.

This requires trust and ethics and the will to enforce it politically (and
maybe a small homogeneous population).

------
petraeus
Culture-lock is the very reason China is having such a hard time become a
modern technology leading state.

Its the same as in martial arts, the fixed form practices got absolutely
decimated by MMA, diversity is a strength and modern cultures are very bad at
accepting outsiders.

------
LiweiZ
Until those so-called activists don't have to looking for funding from sides
with their own agendas, or more clearly, having stable and large cashflow,
they are fighting for their own fames and interests instead of the people
living on that land.

For outsiders, they are icons/symbols. For most of insiders, they are someone
unrelated to their life. In events like this, both sides can consume the news
and get what they want without anything really meaningful happens.

This is a kind of hopeless in the real world.

Icons get selected and pushed to their directions and have no means to
actually do anything useful.

As an average Joe, the best thing to do is reducing this kind of consumption,
taking care of yourself and, hopefully, not getting involved in/caught. This
can somewhat explain, from one dimension, why there is no truly strong and
cohesive Chinese community in the western world.

More money only spoils unrestricted kids even more. They don't settle down for
the progress they gain, just want even more. That's a DNA in the core of the
whole system and affects people within.

There is nothing to look for, just strong dark currents.

------
zuolan
As a Chinese, I need to clarify some facts.

I think that the Communist Party of China made a really big mistake, which
caused a serious impact on China's national image. But I also do not agree
with Liu Xiaobo's political views.

Finally, China's political environment indeed bad, but most of the Western
media coverage distorted the facts, including the Liu Xiaobo event.

~~~
tsukaisute
。

~~~
matthewmacleod
I’d argue that they are not being disagreed with because of what is “socially
acceptable”, but because their comment added no additional facts or
information, and was instead just a couple of opinions without much to inform
them.

------
Elect2
Now in Chinese weibo.com, if your message includes "javascript", it can not be
sent and return "content is illegal!". A guess is that the word "javascript"
includes "RIP".

~~~
explodingcamera
That's just a poor implementation of xss prevention

~~~
z3t1
That's not the case. The problem only started to pop up several hours ago.

------
TokenDiversity
I'm surprised China gets away with so much! They recently banned kids from
being named Mohammad. And had Imams dance. I wish our war-mongering
republicans would switch their attention to countries that really violate
human rights.

EDIT: Of course they do much worse, I was pointing to the fact that not a peep
was heard on Fox or CNN.

~~~
theseadroid
Here's one suggestion from a Chinese perspective: Can you guys fix your
democracy first? If you can't set a good example on how good democracy can be,
then there's no incentives for any other countries to follow.

You realize that US influence can never achieve anything without the citizens
of China agree with it right? Like now majority of Chinese think your
political system is a joke. And you know what? The majority of Chinese like
those policies that's violating certain human rights. If US can only be ever
weaker as time goes by then the values you hold dear can only be more
insignificant in other part of the world.

~~~
mattmanser
Fix what? Your government is the one telling you it's broken. Your idea of US
democracy has been spoon fed to you by your government. You're throwing stones
from a greenhouse.

While US democracy isnt a particularly good form as it puts too much power in
the executive branch, it's overly partisan and two-party, there's nothing
fundamentally broken about it. There's disadvantages to proportional
representation, which would break the two party rule, and as we see with
Trump, an autocratic president seems, in reality, pretty ineffectual when the
other arms.of government start balking at their demands.

~~~
gcb0
the two party is a problem, despite you not seeing it. and the cult of
personality instead of ideological elections is mostly what the Chinese media
mocks the west for.

~~~
js8
> the two party is a problem

Although as a European I disagree with some specifics of U.S. culture (and
also American foreign policy), I have to say U.S. democracy is actually
surprisingly strong at the more local level. Lots of states have semi-direct
democracy instruments, for example town halls and referenda. People have it in
their blood.

~~~
jdietrich
By the same token, elected judges and sheriffs have largely been a disaster,
especially in states with partisan elections for those offices. Direct
democracy is a very dangerous tool.

~~~
js8
Not sure about that, however I do not consider direct election of officials to
be a form of direct democracy, it's representative democracy. I know for many
people the difference is confusing, but direct democracy means direct voting
about issues, not voting for parties or people.

