China upholds Liu Xiaobo sentence

Liu Xiaobo

This may come as no surprise to most of us, but the sad news reached us today that China has upheld Liu Xiaobo’s sentencing to 11 years in prison for subversion of state power.

US ambassador Jon Huntsman said,

We are disappointed by the Chinese Government’s decision. (…) We believe that he should not have been sentenced in the first place and should be released immediately.

Amnesty International, meanwhile, said China had missed an opportunity to ‘right a wrong’. Roseann Rife, an Asia-Pacific official for the organisation, said,

His harsh sentence is a stark reminder to the Chinese people and the world that there is still no freedom of expression or independent judiciary in China.

This also follows the recent sentencing of Tan Zuoren, who faces five years for seeking to document the poor construction of the schools that fatally collapsed in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.

Today’s poignant decision cast a sombre mood over those caught in the struggle for China’s democratisation. As Michael Anti tweeted,

Feb 11, 1990, Mandela walked out of the jail. 20 yrs later, Feb 11, 2010, Li Xiaobo was confirmed 11 yrs sentence.

Liu Xiaobo’s Trial is the morning call for every Chinese democrat. See you soon, my dear Mr Mandela.

‘Just speculating’ (and other interesting reads)

http://www.zonaeuropa.com/20100118_1.htm

The above link will direct you to ESWN’s translation of prominent blogger Han Han’s speculation over the future of the Chinese Internet. Needless to say, it was deleted by blog hosting service Sina.com pretty quickly. And apparently, we have the following to look forward to:

2019:  It is the military parade on the seventieth anniversary of the founding of the nation.  On that day, the government announces that China will lock down its national borders and concentrate on strengthening itself so that all reactionary forces will tremble in fear.  On that day, China makes a statement to the rest of the world: “If you stop beating someone for 3 days, he/she may get on the roof and remove tiles.”  Many nations say that they don’t know how to translate this sentence.

2020: …

2020:  Earth is destroyed.  The descendants of the Mayans say that it is normal to see a margin of error of plus or minus ten years on such events.

Another link comes via Peter Beaumont of the Observer. Here he discusses the growing claim that there is even less freedom in China now than before 1989, and why China is terrified of escalating dissent. Fear? Harmony? Paranoia? Power-hungry?

Finally, if you haven’t quite filled your quota of the Google-China fiasco, read Rebecca MacKinnon’s commentary on the global Internet’s future and the need for accountability from both governments and online power holders.

How not to handle China

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/dec/30/west-china-akmal-shaikh

This brief post is a link to this fantastic piece written by Jonathan Fenby in today’s Guardian comment pages. Simply, Fenby argues, the West doesn’t understand how Beijing politics works, making her ill-equipped to deal diplomatically with the PRC. I couldn’t agree more, and have put forward similar (if less detailed and far less esteemed) lines of argument in previous posts.

I’ll leave you with this excerpt:

It might be nice if China was more like us, but it isn’t going to be. Expecting it to fit into the paradigm set by the west is not only futile but positively dangerous. The sooner governments start to work out a meaningful China policy rather than depending on wishful thinking, the better. It would make a good New year’s resolution. But I’m not holding my breath.

Happy New Year!