Beijing’s Nobel Shame

Liu Xiaobo will be remembered long after Xi Jinping is forgotten.
The Wall Street Journal

Liu Xiaobo, winner of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize, is suffering from late-stage liver cancer, the world learned Monday. 

His lawyer says China has granted Mr. Liu “medical parole,” and he is receiving treatment in a Shenyang hospital. 

But Beijing can’t shirk responsibility for his condition, which should have been treated aggressively earlier, and for his years of incarceration and separation from his family, which were a cruel injustice.
China imprisoned Mr. Liu in 2008 and sentenced him to 11 years in prison for “incitement to subversion of state power.” 

His crime? 

He helped write Charter 08, a peaceful call for political reform signed by thousands of Chinese. 

The manifesto was based on Charter 77, a Soviet-era human-rights petition written by Czech dissidents including Vaclav Havel.
As the Nobel citation noted, “Liu has consistently maintained that the sentence violates both China’s own constitution and fundamental human rights.” 

Beijing continues to imprison anyone who protests its failure to abide by its own laws.
China also tries to punish foreign individuals and institutions that expose its human-rights abuses. 

That includes the nation of Norway, home to the Nobel Committee. 

After Mr. Liu won the Peace Prize, which is administered by a private foundation, Beijing curtailed diplomatic relations and trade on grounds that Norway had honored a “criminal.” 

Chinese authorities also put his wife, Liu Xia, under house arrest. 

Such ruthlessnees is a hallmark of the current generation of Chinese Communist rulers.
The world heard nothing directly from Mr. Liu during his nine years in prison, but his wife spoke to him shortly after his sentencing. 

“When he decides to do something, he doesn’t regret it,” she said. 

“He said he hopes to be the last person punished for practicing freedom of expression.” 

Long after the Communist Party is discarded and Xi Jinping is forgotten, Mr. Liu will be remembered as an historic figure in the fight for Chinese freedom.