Dalai Lama: Half Marxist, Half Buddhist

It's no secret that the real threat to the Chinese Communist Party doesn't come from capitalism, but Marxism. U.S. corporations like Cisco have been helping the Chinese government build and maintain its ruthless surveillance state, while Apple pays off officials in order to rake in profits by violating basic labour standards. One of the main pillars of the Chinese system is American capital.

The Marxists are the dissidents, the real party poopers. They remind everyone of the class struggle, of social justice and equality, all things that have become incompatible with China's feverish embrace of globalization. A recent article in Tricycle, "Occupy Buddhism, or Why the Dalai Lama is a Marxist," explains why this dissident's claim to be "half-Marxist, half-Buddhist" makes perfect sense. For one thing, both share a fundamental belief in dialectical materialism.

(Tibet - Drepung Monastery, by Yewco)

The Dalai Lama has acknowledged his Marxist affinities for a long time, admitting that its central appeal lies in its emphasis on equality and fairness:

"Of all the modern economic theories, the economic system of Marxism is founded on moral principles, while capitalism is concerned with only with gain and profitability. Marxism is concerned with the distribution of wealth on an equal basis and the equitable utilization of the means of production.

It is also concerned with the fate of the working classes—that is the majority—as well as with the fate of those who are underprivileged and in need, and Marxism cares about the victims of minority-imposed exploitation. For those reasons the system appeals to me, and it seems fair...

The failure of the regime in the Soviet Union was, for me not the failure of Marxism but the failure of totalitarianism. For this reason I think of myself as half-Marxist, half-Buddhist."

So if a synthesis between Buddha and Marx is possible, maybe it's not easier to imagine the end of all life on earth than to imagine a radical change in capitalism. As Marx and Engels wrote in German Ideology:

"Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things."

Today, a Buddhist-Marxist alliance isn't needed to achieve this - Wall Street is enough.

World's Youngest Political Prisoner: Tibet & China

“Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them.” ~ Dalai Lama

The Chinese Consulate in San Francisco is in an awkward location. Wedged between Saint Mary's Cathedral, the mother church for Catholics in the San Francisco area, and Japantown, it appears to be condemned to a life of penance. While visiting a few weeks ago, we passed a demonstration to release the 11th Panchen Lama of Tibet.

It was April 25th, the 23rd birthday of Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, the real Panchen Lama, who went missing 17 years ago in 1995. Human rights groups have since dubbed him "the youngest political prisoner in the world."

In May 1995, the Dalai Lama recognized Nyima as the 11th reincarnation of the Panchen Lama, one of Tibet’s most important religious leaders. Just after this he and his family were taken into custody by the Chinese authorities and he hasn't been seen since. Then in November 1995, the Chinese government installed a fake Panchen Lama, Gyaincain Norbu.

(Norbu in Hong Kong at the Third World Buddhist Forum, April 26, 2012, the day after Nyima's birthday)

China has been in the news lately regarding blind activist Chen Guangcheng's escape from house detention late last month. Reports have been circulating about China's regressive actions of late and how the country's moneyed elite is making arrangements to flee. If true, the Middle Kingdom may be finally doing itself in.

Killing Chickens: China's Thugocracy

(Ai Weiwei, China Bench)

Any foreigner, especially a non-Asian, who has spent time in mainland China knows the feeling. As fast as you can say cha siu bao, you're suddenly the most popular guy on the train or the most conspicuous gweilo in the crowd. While similar occurrences happen in other Asian countries like Japan or South Korea, something a little more sinister might be at work underneath all the emotive bonhomie in China.

Those penetrating eyeballs might not be attached to benevolent admirers or welcoming natives to the Middle Kingdom after all; they could be connected to what Naomi Klein has called, "China's All-Seeing Eye," the surveillance state's great panopticon outlined in the Wall Street Journal. As a recent article in the SCMP (paywall) makes clear, the Chinese police are being trained to view foreigners as de facto "anti-Chinese":

Many of those detained were apparently forced to sign confessions, letters of repentance and guarantees they would not engage in rights work any more or have contact with foreign friends, the media or people within their circles. And if they met anyone, they were required to report it to the police.

The techniques used to secure compliance appear to have been consistent.

"They were made to confess, and then they made the person take the transcript and read it out to the camera," a source said.

"There were varying numbers of promises and commitments that had to be made, but all of the lawyers who were detained could only be taken back if they signed guarantee promises."

Detainees were asked about a few general topics: contact with foreigners, whom the police see as anti-Chinese; oppositionists, lawyers and other activists who challenge the party; and the "jasmine revolution".

Chinese authorities are increasingly turning to a "non-uniformed" thugocracy to do their dirty work when it comes to security and the silencing of dissent:

Many of the lawyers and activists have been illegally detained and held for excessive periods in violation of Chinese laws. In some instances, people have been abducted off the streets, with a black hood thrown over their heads by non-uniformed security officers.

The victims of "black-hooding" are often illegally held in unknown locations, incommunicado for periods ranging from days to months in what some call a "black box". Sometimes the abductions are carried out by thugs hired by the police to intimidate the targets.

"The most worrisome thing is that what we know the least about is what measures they're using to keep people silent upon their release," said Jerome Cohen, professor and co-director of the US-Asia Law Institute at New York University's school of law and adjunct senior fellow for Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations.

"Many of these guys are tough. What could be so effective? Apparently, there are new measures that are making them less willing to be contacted upon their release.

"What could you do to these people to make them unusually silent when they should have expressed outrage?"

Some details of the treatment may be known to fellow lawyers, but except for a handful of cases, those released have vehemently refused to go public with what happened to them, apparently under threat from the authorities, who warned them not to speak.

Even when the details are known, experts and journalists have been reluctant to speak publicly about them for fear the release of the information could result in official retaliation.

In some cases, however, it is believed the targets were allowed to tell fellow lawyers of their experience, using a strategy called "killing a chicken to scare the monkeys".

"We felt, at the same time, they wanted him to speak out in order to raise the level of terror," the Beijing lawyer quoted earlier said of a colleague who had been detained.

"They wanted to use him to threaten everyone else."

The human rights scholar agreed, saying: "This is a perfect way of spreading terror."

Cohen feared that the methods used by police were "more sinister" than torture methods known to have been used before. "Is there something more and more unnerving?"

According to some reports, threats have been made regarding the family members of the people targeted in the campaign.

In one case, police summoned the wife and small child of a lawyer to the police station, where they were intimidated. Police told the wife: "We can deal with you in the same way we dealt with your husband."

Another lawyer was repeatedly warned: "You should think about your family."

"This is the revival of the old custom of family retribution - collective criminal punishment," Cohen said, referring to a tradition from imperial days, when the relatives of criminals were also punished.

"I worry about threats to family members. How can you risk your family for human rights?"

It seems certain that plain old torture has been used in many cases.

This is why the release of Ai Weiwei was "fake" and why U.S. companies like Cisco and Hewlett-Packard have to do more than take China "at their word," as Todd Bradley, an executive vice president who oversees H-P's China strategy, recently said. He added, "It's not my job to really understand what they're going to use it for. Our job is to respond to the bid that they've made." If the Obama administration refuses to act, the U.S. will be guilty of aiding and abetting China's slaughtering of dissent.

Fake: The Release Of Ai Weiwei

258 Fake. That's where mainland artist and former detainee Ai Weiwei lives. What was once a comment on the authenticity of "home" has now become a fact of Ai's life. Suspended in a "fake" existence, Ai is anything but free.


Last Wednesday when Ai was released after serving 81 days in detention, the first impulse was to breath a sigh of relief and then rejoice. But what has become clear is that Ai, along with many others, is still firmly under the boot of the Communist thugocracy. As Gao Wenqian, a former Communist Party official who fled to the U.S. after the Tiananmen Square massacre says, “You can say that Ai Weiwei was transferred from a small prison to the prison outside.”



Watching Ai return silently to his Bejing home last week was a chilling scene. The once gregarious artist had been muzzled - he looked worn and haggard and was unable to answer even the simplest questions about his detention. That is one among a long list of conditions pertaining to his "release." He was never formally charged with anything, yet the state-run Xinhua news agency reported that he confessed to his "crimes." The government has now ordered him to pay 12 million yuan ($1.85 million) in back taxes and fines.

When the Arab Spring started gathering momentum the Chinese authorities freaked out and began a crackdown on civil society not seen since the wake of the Tiananmen massacre in 1989. As Newsweek reports:

With a powerful “security faction” now ascendant in the Communist Party, at least 500 people have been detained in the past four months alone, observers estimate. Chinese officials have also severely curtailed press freedom, apparently disrupted Internet and mobile-phone service, and gone after human-rights lawyers in a campaign of torture and disappearances. An Amnesty International report states that, consequently, only “a few hundred out of a total of 204,000 lawyers risk taking up human-rights cases.

This is the China that outsiders don't see. It's a terrifying place to be if you believe in basic freedoms, a place where the rule of law and justice are arbitrary constructs, the fake illusions of a tyrannous regime. Fake is only as good as those who settle for less. The Chinese know they deserve better, which is why the current leadership fears its own people.

Hong Kong Vs. China: A Restless Truce

June 4th is the twenty-second anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. A Candlelight Vigil is held every year at Hong Kong's Victoria Park to commemorate it, the only place in all of China free to hold such an event.

The Forbidden City, Beijing

The vigil has always irked Beijing and they've tried for years to undermine any sign of "subversion" in Hong Kong. Authorities have deployed an old party trick: accuse someone of straying from the official line and shady figures emerge from the shadows to shuttle the poor sod away. It's a favorite tactic used by regimes currently darkening corners of the globe such as Burma (Myanmar), Uzbekistan and North Korea. What they share, apart from gross human rights violations, is a thriving relationship with China.

The Great Wall

In the "Middle Kingdom" the politics of vilification enjoys a long tradition. Anyone or anything that's perceived to threaten the government is quickly branded as counter-revolutionary. It happened with deadly precision during the Cultural Revolution of 1966-1976 when even esteemed cadres were not immune. Former paramount leader, Deng Xiaoping, vanished twice, once in the late 60s and then again in 1976 after the death of Premier Zhou Enlai sparked the protests known as the Tiananmen Incident.

It happened again during the prelude to the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen massacre when the student protests were growing. The Communist Party newspaper, People's Daily, published an editorial accusing a "small number of people with ulterior purposes" of stirring up student unrest, of being counter-revolutionaries and creating turmoil. This effectively sealed the fate of the organizers and as a result, hardened their resolve to demand concessions from the government. The editorial is generally regarded as a major cause of the stalemate that arose between the students and the government, eventually causing the massacre and the subsequent purging of Zhao Ziyang, the reformist General Secretary of the Communist Party.

Zhao Ziyang with present-day Premier of China, Wen Jiabao, Tiananmen Square, May 19, 1989

As with the events of Tiananmen, Beijing is currently displaying increasing hostility by using trumped-up accusations to silence dissent. The list is long and includes Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Lui Xiaobo and internationally acclaimed artist, Ai Weiwei.

"Marble Arm" by Ai Weiwei (courtesy of Galerie Urs Meile)

This form of government terrorism threatens regional stability. As the lessons of World War II prove, a country that deprives its own citizens of human rights will disregard the rights of others. While Hong Kong enjoys more freedoms than the mainland as a result of its status as a Special Administrative Region (SAR) and "one country two systems" policy, Beijing has succeeded in tightening the noose in ever subtle and nefarious ways.

"Running Dog" Martin Lee with Nancy Pelosi

A few years ago, Beijing engaged in a so-called "patriotism campaign" to discredit the democratic movement. Martin Lee, the founding Chairman of the Hong Kong Democratic Party, came under fire from Xinhua, the Beijing government's mouthpiece, which demonized Lee as a "traitor." The China Daily, the Communist Party's English newspaper, also chimed in to attack Lee as a "running dog of colonialists." Lee's family was also targeted. Government officials in Beijing lashed out at his late father, noted Kuomintang (KMT) General Li Yin-wo, also denouncing him as a traitor. Lee's father resisted the 1941-1945 Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, as well as the communists. He's widely regarded as a hero, an embodiment of virtue and a prime example of what differentiates Hong Kong from mainland China. For how long this difference can survive is up to the vigilance of patriots like Lee.

Bob Dylan: Piano Man

"I’m here to create the new imperial empire
I’m going to do whatever circumstances require" - Honest With Me

Tomorrow night, Bob Dylan, or "Baobo Dilun" (鲍勃迪伦) as the Chinese say, will be playing Hong Kong for the second time in his career. His current Asian tour has been inspiring rapturous reviews from Beijing to Ho Chi Minh City, but also an undercurrent of criticism from the likes of Human Rights Watch and the New York Times' Maureen Dowd. As Gawker's Max Read put it, they're mad that Bob didn’t overthrow the Chinese government. It's ridiculous and much of it is based on unsubstantiated reports that authorities vetted his playlist, even going so far as censoring such subversive manifestos as "Blowin' In The Wind" and "The Times They Are A-Changin'."

(via CNN)

I don't know about any of that, but I do know he got away with this:

Now you see this one-eyed midget shouting the word "NOW!"
And you say, "For what reason?"
And he says, "How?"
And you say, "What does this mean?"
And he screams back, "You're a cow!
Give me some milk or else go home!"

I also know he's been playing more piano than guitar, which is a very good sign. Bob can play - he's got chops and soul:



Then there's this chestnut from Slow Train Coming, "When He Returns" (via Godtube):



Bob's playing two nights, April 12-13 at the Star Hall in Kowloon Bay. Wouldn't miss it for all for all the farms in Cuba.

Love The Future: Ai Weiwei

"I really don't dare believe that in this society, even love for the future can disappear" - anonymous Internet post

Since Ai Weiwei was detained on April 3rd, his name has been banned, deleted, erased, wacked, clubbed - whatever - by the Internet police in a futile attempt to prevent people from typing what everyone already knows. As a result, netizens have adapted and are using different variants of his name. Ai Weiwei - 艾未未 - can be read/pronounced as "ai weilai" or "love the future" and several people have been using it. It's a beautiful turn of phrase that suggests Ai is the future of China, regardless of what the government might wish.

Above is a screenshot of the statement that appeared briefly on the state news agency, Xinhua, before it was deleted today. He's being investigated for "suspected economic crimes," or corruption. On April 6th, an article in the state-run Global Times threatened that Ai "will pay a price" without specifying for what exactly. It reads like a ransom note from a gang of desperate thugs.

Ai with one of his "crimes" - a name list of the more than 5,000 children who perished in the May 12, 2008 Sichuan Earthquake

After the Sichuan Earthquake, Ai helped launch a "Citizens' Investigation" that uncovered evidence of a corruption scandal involving shoddy construction of what became known as "tofu" schools. In August 2009, while trying to testify for his friend, Tan Zuoren, he was attacked by police in his Chengdu hotel room in the middle of the night. A month later in Munich, he underwent emergency brain surgery to stop internal bleeding. From October 2009 to January 2010, his Munich exhibition, "So Sorry," included an installation made up of 9000 children's backpacks spelling out, "She lived happily for seven years in this world," a quote from a mother whose child died in the earthquake. Ai has also tweeted the names of the victims on their birthdays, using the hashtag #512birthday.

The government is saying Ai's disappearance has "nothing to do with human rights or freedom of expression." If that's so, then the deaths of the children had nothing to do with an earthquake and everything to do with government corruption.

Wang Dan: Barred From Hong Kong

"...the Tiananmen Massacre is still going on, only in different ways..." - Wang Dan

It should never have been in doubt; mainland dissident Wang Dan would have no problem arriving in Hong Kong from Taiwan, where he currently lives, to attend the funeral this Saturday of local patriot Szeto Wah. Hong Kong enjoys "one country two systems"; it has the legitimate right, according to its mini-constitution, to "a high degree of autonomy" from the mainland. But no. This autonomy doesn't extend to allowing a grieving countryman to visit and pay tribute to one of Hong Kong's most beloved sons. The long arm of Beijing pulls the strings and our much vaunted "one country two systems" has been exposed as nothing but a sham.

As Wang said, "Refusing me entry again tells the world that the 'one country, two systems' formula is a total lie, as the Hong Kong government has totally given up its right to autonomy, and Beijing's will prevails in all of Hong Kong."

"Execution" - Yue Minjun

Wang has paid his dues. He did time in prison on two separate occasions for his leading role in the 1989 Tiananmen protests. As a 20-year-old student from Peking University, Wang topped the list of most wanted "counterrevolutionaries" Beijing published after the June 4th massacre. He was finally released to the U.S. in 1998 for "medical reasons" and enrolled at Harvard where he obtained a master's in East Asian history in 2001 and a PhD in 2008. His PhD thesis was a comparative study of Chinese mainland and Taiwanese politics in the 1950s. Wang continues to advocate for democratic reforms and petition Beijing to allow him to return to visit his aging parents. In 2009, he spelled out four steps Beijing should implement to "begin to turn the tragic page of Tiananmen":

"First, it should pay reparations to the Tiananmen mothers who lost their children forever.

Second, the government should allow me and other forcibly exiled Chinese citizens to return to our homeland.

Third, the government should release the remaining political prisoners who were jailed for peacefully protesting in Tiananmen Square and more recent prisoners persecuted for their efforts to encourage human rights reform.

Finally, China's leaders should address the long-term objectives shared by the Tiananmen students and the authors of Charter 08 -- establishing the rule of law, guaranteeing basic human rights and ending corruption."

Viva Macau: Las Vegas East

You gotta sin to be saved, you gotta be damned to be raised. In Macau, China's nouveau riche come to pursue gilded pleasures with the passion of invincible religious zealots.

From the casinos of the Grand Lisboa Hotel to the ruins of St. Paul's Cathedral, this is a town that thrives on glitter from the gutter.

And overlooking it all are the ghosts of revolutions past, remixed to fit the times.

Macau, like Hong Kong, is a Special Administrative Region and its citizens enjoy more freedoms than those on the mainland. An hour away by ferry from Hong Kong, it's a unique blend of Portuguese and Chinese cultures reflecting its history as a colony from the 16th century.

Portugal handed it back to China in 1999, two years after Hong Kong, but the Macanese culture still survives with Portuguese an official language along with Cantonese. This has made the territory a tourist mecca with thousands of mainlanders arriving daily to spend in Macau's gilded palaces of sin. Over 20.68 million visitors arrived in Macau between January and October 2010 and more than half – 10.93 million – came from mainland China.

Death Of A Patriot: Szeto Wah

If you had to choose one person who embodied the moral aspirations of Hong Kong, a person whose love for justice extended to all of China, it would be Szeto Wah. He's been on the frontlines for almost forty years fighting relentlessly for human rights and democracy. But no more. Earlier this week he succumbed to lung cancer. He was 79.

Szeto began as his career in 1952 as a primary school teacher in the hardscrabble district of Kwun Tong, eventually becoming a headmaster. In 1973, he headed Hong Kong's first city-wide teachers' strike after the British colonial government tried to cut wages by a whopping 15 per cent. Realizing that teachers were vulnerable, he helped form the Professional Teachers' Union the following year. It's since blossomed into one of the city's largest with a membership of 85,000, including me.

Szeto Wah beside the "Pillar of Shame" at Hong Kong University commemorating June 4, 1989.

Following his success with the PTU, Szeto became a legislator and briefly worked with Beijing to draft Hong Kong's Basic Law - our mini constitution - in preparation for the 1997 British handover. This stint ended abruptly when Beijing turned the tanks on its own citizens in the early hours of June 4, 1989. In the weeks prior to the massacre, Szeto had founded the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, which he remained in charge of right up to the end of his life.

In the fevered aftermath of the massacre, the group spearheaded "Operation Yellow Bird," the codename for a plan to rescue the leaders of the Tiananmen movement who were on the run in mainland China. He helped raise funds from the people of Hong Kong and smuggled them into the territory via underground and pirate channels. One was Wu'er Kaixi, now based in Taiwan and who is seeking to attend Szeto's funeral at the end of this month. Branded a criminal on the mainland, it's still not certain if Wu'er will be allowed to enter Hong Kong, despite our much lauded "One country, two systems."
These actions predictably earned Szeto the wrath of Beijing. He was banned from the mainland and villified as a subversive, but none of this phased him. He remained an unwavering advocate for democracy and for the vindication of the Tiananmen Square protesters, helping to organize Hong Kong's annual Candlelight Vigil every June 4th and supporting the "Tiananmen Mothers." When asked how he felt about China, he expressed the popular sentiment in Hong Kong, saying, "I am a patriot. I love China. I just don't like the government."

A memorial service will be held in Victoria Park on February 27 to pay tribute. The funeral will be held on January 29 at St Andrew's Church in Tsim Sha Tsui.

Liu Xiaobo: A True "Chairman"

"Lui Xiaobo today has become a true 'chairman'" - anonymous internet post

Attempts by China to demonize and discredit the Nobel Peace Prize and its committee have backfired gloriously, reaching absurd levels of guano. Not only has a simple image of an empty chair aroused fear and panic in the authorities, but television screens turn black whenever the name everyone knows is mentioned. As the New Yorker's Evan Osnos writes, "The Black screen is reserved for a specific kind of unknowing: the denial of something everyone knows."

Is this how a great power acts? It's more like the tantrums of a spoiled brat who expects the world to revolve around his own swollen head. China makes a fool of itself whenever it tries to employ the same tactics it uses domestically on the international community. Fellow citizens may kowtow to Beijing out of fear, but for the rest of the world China is anything but the so-called "Middle Kingdom" it views itself as.
As Lui Xiaobo wrote, "To strangle freedom of speech is to trample on human rights, stifle humanity, and suppress truth." When China's rulers try to do this on an international level they distort the true nature of their country, so much so that China will now forever linger alongside Nazi Germany in the annals of Nobel lore. And for anyone who knows China and its people, that's just one more tragedy - albeit a self-inflicted one - caused by the true enemies of the people - unelected thugs like Hu Jintao.

China's Shame: The Nobel Boycott

"It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness"- Chinese proverb

On December 10th, International Human Rights Day, China will have made every effort to snuff out the light of our collective humanity. Rather than permit the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Liu Xiaobo, to attend the award ceremony in Oslo, authorities in Beijing have been pressuring countries to join them in a boycott. As of today, 18 have agreed - Russia, Kazakhstan, Colombia, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Serbia, Iraq , Iran, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Venezuela, the Philippines, Egypt, Sudan, Ukraine, Cuba and Morocco. Add to that list of shame the U.N.'s top human rights official, Navi Pillay.

Outside The Chinese Liaison Office in Hong Kong

No one from Liu's family is expected to be on hand to accept the award. His wife, Liu Xia, has been under house arrest since he was named the winner in October and other family members are under pressure not to speak publicly. The last time no one was present to accept the peace medal was in 1936 when the German journalist and pacifist, Carl von Ossietzky, wasn't allowed to leave Nazi Germany. China now joins the odious ranks of the Nazis in attempting to snuff out human rights.

Many of Liu’s fellow dissidents and supporters have been warned not to attend or, as in the case of Ai Weiwei, have been physically prevented from leaving China. That hasn't stopped more than 40 exiled Chinese dissidents from traveling to the Norwegian capital in what will be an unprecedented reunion since many of them fled China 20 years ago. According to the South China Morning Post;

"Among the participants will be former Tiananmen pro-democracy activists now living in the United States, such as former student leaders Chai Ling and Feng Congde , as well as Fang Zheng , a former student whose legs were crushed by a tank as he fled Tiananmen Square in 1989. US-based astrophysicist Professor Fang Lizhi and Taiwan-based Wuer Kaixi will also attend.

Feng said the event would be the largest gathering of dissidents since the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, and the honouring of Liu would be "extremely meaningful" for the Chinese democracy movement."

In response, China's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Jiang Yu, said;

“We are not changing because of interference by a few clowns and we will not change our path."

Indeed, clowns come in many different shapes and sizes....

Liu Xiaobo (刘晓波): China's Nobel Laureate!

Hong Kong is all abuzz over the announcement that Liu Xiaobo has won the Nobel Peace Prize "for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China." Rumours abounded, but few believed it would actually happen. Then a few weeks ago when the Chinese government warned the Nobel Committee not to give Liu the prize "because he had violated Chinese law" you could smell the fear rising off their scabby hides and it raised hopes around the world. It also likely encouraged the Norwegians to go right ahead and do what they dare not do.

Liu was sentenced for "subversion" and jailed for 11 years on Christmas Day 2009, a day chosen by the authorities because they hoped the West would be preoccupied with other matters. It had much to do with his leading role in promoting "Charter 08," a movement advocating human rights and democratic reforms in China. It was modeled on Soviet-era Czechoslovakia's "Charter 77" in which Václav Havel took part. Havel has been among those who have protested Liu's sentence.


This is absolutely glorious news. Anything that makes Beijing livid has to be celebrated and Hong Kong is the only place in China where a body can righteously scream it from the rooftops. And we will. Liu is now the first Chinese citizen to ever win a Nobel Peace prize. The Dalai Lama won in 1989, but is classified as a refugee and the 2000 winner, Gao Xingjian, won for literature and is a French citizen.