President Trump warns China is 'ripe' for new tariffs and suggests Vietnam could be next

President Trump also attacks Germany and Japan as he set off for the G20 summit in Osaka

The Guardian

President Donald Trump issued stark warnings before departing Washington for the G20 summit in Japan. 

President Donald Trump flew to the G20 summit on Wednesday sounding warnings that China was “ripe” for new tariffs and suggesting that Vietnam, which he called “the single worst abuser of everybody”, could be next.
Air Force One took off on a fiercely hot day from Washington and President Trump seemed to promise heat of his own when he meets leaders of the G20 countries in Japan.

Declaring that he enjoyed a strong hand in the trade war with China, he made clear he’ll be in no mood to give much ground when he holds closely watched talks with Xi Jinping on Saturday.

“China’s economy is going down the tubes – they want to make a deal,” President Trump said in an interview with Fox Business Network.

President Trump has already imposed levies on $200bn of Chinese imports in an effort to force Beijing to adhere to intellectual property laws. 

The president indicated he was also ready to slap tariffs on all remaining Chinese imports, worth more than $300bn.
“You have another $325bn that I haven’t taxed yet – it’s ripe for taxing, for putting tariffs on,” he told Fox.
During Wednesday’s interview, President Trump also hinted he might impose tariffs on Vietnam, describing the country as “the single worst abuser of everybody”.

“A lot of companies are moving to Vietnam, but Vietnam takes advantage of us even worse than China. So there’s a very interesting situation going on there,” President Trump said.

President Trump said that that the China trade tariffs were only hurting China, while the US was benefiting from the situation.
“What is happening is people are moving out of China. Companies are moving out of China, by the way, some are coming back to the United States because they don’t want to pay the tariff,” he said.
President Trump did say that a previous threat to tax remaining trade at 25% could be changed to a less harsh 10%.
The two sides said they were close to a deal before talks broke down in May.
“We were about 90% of the way there,” the treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, told CNBC television, adding he was looking forward to the Trump-Xi talks but stressing there would be no deal for “the sake of a deal.”
“I hope the message that we want to hear is that they want to come back to the table,” Mnuchin said.
President Trump’s aggressive attempt to rewrite the rules with China are part of a wider policy of fixing what he says is a system rigged against the United States.
“Almost all countries in this world take tremendous advantage of the United States. It’s unbelievable,” he said in his lengthy interview.
Casting his eye over the wider landscape, President Trump also lashed out at close partners Germany and Japan.

He described Germany – part of the bedrock of the US alliance with western Europe – as “delinquent” for not paying enough to NATO’s budget.
“So Germany is paying Russia billions and billions of dollars for energy, okay,” he said. 

“So they are giving Russia billions of dollars yet we are supposed to protect Germany and Germany is delinquent! Okay?”
President Trump aired a similar complaint about Japan, Washington’s closest ally in Asia and host of the G20 summit, which has been under the protection of a US military umbrella since its defeat in the second world war.
“If Japan is attacked, we will fight World War III. We will go in and protect them with our lives and with our treasure,” he said. 

“But if we’re attacked, Japan doesn’t have to help us. They can watch it on a Sony television.”
Speaking to reporters at the White House, President Trump remained coy on expectations for his meeting at the G20 with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.

President Trump has been criticised for what opponents see as an oddly opaque relationship between the two leaders and he did little to dispel the controversy.
“I’ll have a very good conversation with him,” President Trump told reporters. 

“What I say to him is none of your business.”

Why Hong Kong’s Protesters Are Turning to G-20 Leaders for Help

By Keith Bradsher, Daniel Victor and Mike Ives

Protesters outside the American consulate in Hong Kong on Wednesday.

Protesters in Hong Kong have flooded the streets and the grounds of government offices in rallies over the past three weeks against an unpopular bill that has thrown the territory into a political crisis. On Wednesday, they directed their appeals to a new audience: the world.
Hundreds of protesters, dressed in black and white T-shirts, demonstrated at foreign governments’ consulates in Hong Kong to demand that world leaders address their concerns at the annual summit meeting of the Group of 20 later this week in Osaka, Japan. 

And thousands turned out for a peaceful demonstration outside City Hall Wednesday night chanting “Free Hong Kong! Democracy now!”
Later in the night, the demonstration took a rowdier turn as thousands of young protesters walked to the headquarters of the city’s police force and surrounded it, blocking nearby roads. 

A few piled metal barricades against a closed metal gate outside the driveway of the complex as officers watched from inside.
Hong Kong has been roiled in recent weeks by what have been some of the city’s largest-ever demonstrations, which have already forced Carrie Lam, the embattled chief executive, to suspend the bill. 

The measure would allow the extradition of Hong Kong’s residents and visitors to mainland China’s opaque judicial system.
But demonstrators still want the legislation to be formally withdrawn, and they want to send a broader message that they will resist the erosion of the civil liberties that set the city apart from the rest of China.
The protesters see the G-20 as a way to pressure China
The demonstrators hope to draw to Hong Kong the attention of the leaders of industrialized and emerging nations and the European Union who will soon arrive in Osaka for the Group of 20 meeting. 

They say that world events have given them extra leverage in forcing Lam and Beijing’s leaders to agree to suspend the law.
“Without the trade war chaos and the G-20 summit, would Carrie Lam have announced the suspension?” said Joshua Wong, a prominent youth activist.
The demonstrations represent the biggest resistance to Beijing’s rule on Chinese soil since Britain handed back the territory in 1997, said Willy Lam, a political scientist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
“This is a direct slap in the face of Xi Jinping,” Mr. Lam said, “and so some Western countries, particularly the U.S., may want to use this as an excuse to further put pressure on Xi Jinping.”

Carrie Lam during a news conference last week. Lam, Hong Kong’s chief executive, appeared to be lying low this week, perhaps to avoid embarrassing Xi Jinping ahead of his trip to Japan or setting off a fresh conflict with her critics at home.

Jeremy Hunt, the British foreign secretary, said on Tuesday that the government would not issue licenses for crowd control equipment to Hong Kong “unless we are satisfied that concerns raised on human rights and fundamental freedoms have been thoroughly addressed.” 

He called for an independent investigation of police violence, echoing one of the demands of the protesters.
President Trump is a particular focus for them
The protesters’ first stop in what they described as a marathon march was the American consulate. There, Lawrence Wong, a 46-year-old filmmaker, handed to an American consulate spokesman a letter addressed to President Trump. 

The letter asked Mr. Trump to raise Hong Kong’s issues at the Group of 20 meeting with Xi Jinping, China’s top leader.
“We hope President Trump can give Xi Jinping some pressure,” Mr. Wong said in an interview later. 

“We need all the friends of liberal democracy, people who believe in human rights and freedom, to be on our side.”
Mr. Trump has expressed sympathy for the Hong Kong protesters, but has not offered to take up their cause at the summit, where he is expected to meet with Xi to discuss trade.
But a bipartisan group of American lawmakers, prompted by the trade war and the protests, earlier this month introduced a bill that could affect Hong Kong’s trade status. 

That bill angered China, which summoned a senior American diplomat in Beijing to lodge a complaint against what the government saw as foreign interference in its affairs.
If passed, the bill would require the State Department to affirm every year that the territory remained autonomous from the mainland. 

If the department found that Hong Kong had lost its autonomy, that could make Hong Kong subject to controls the United States imposes to prevent the shipment of many high-tech, militarily sensitive goods to mainland China.
Edward Yau, Hong Kong’s secretary of commerce and economic development, said that Hong Kong’s separate trade status from mainland China is secured by many international agreements and by pacts with Beijing. 

The city is a big base for American banks and other companies, he added.
“We help push the door open for overseas companies into the mainland,” Mr. Yau said in an interview in his office last week.
The city’s leader is lying low as pressure grows
Lam appeared to be lying low this week, perhaps to avoid embarrassing Xi ahead of his trip to Japan or setting off a fresh conflict with her critics at home.

A standing weekly meeting of her Executive Council, scheduled for Tuesday, was canceled. 

And even though Hong Kong’s protests have made global headlines in recent days, her office has not issued a news release for a week.
Lam’s popularity in the city has sunk since she started pushing the extradition bill several months ago. 

On Tuesday, the University of Hong Kong said Lam’s popularity rating had fell in the past two weeks to a historic low for the position of chief executive. 

Even some of Lam’s allies in the territory’s pro-Beijing political establishment have joined calls for her to withdraw the bill.
The leader of the largest pro-establishment party, the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, said on Sunday that supporters of the extradition bill would not oppose the government if it gave in to the demands of the protesters and fully retracted the legislation.
The party’s leader, Starry Lee, when asked in a televised interview whether the party would support or agree with the government if it described the bill as withdrawn instead of suspended, said: “If the government believes that doing this would help repair society, I think we would support and understand.”
Demonstrators are wary of alienating the public
The protest movement, which has been largely leaderless, appeared to be weighing a desire to publicize its cause against concerns that acts of civil disobedience would alienate the residents of this financial hub known for its efficiency.
Last Friday, thousands of protesters, mostly teenagers and people in their 20s dressed in black, drew criticism after they surrounded police’s headquarters for 15 hours and filled the lobbies of at least two other government buildings, disrupting some services.
Dozens of protesters tried to repeat their blockade on Monday, preventing people from entering government buildings in central Hong Kong, in what they called a noncooperation campaign. 

Local television broadcast interviews with irate Hong Kong residents who were unable to pay their taxes or use other government services.
A day later, a handful of protesters turned up at the same site — this time, to apologize for inconveniencing the public.
And on Wednesday, the protesters took pains to keep their demonstrations orderly. 

They stayed on sidewalks, observed traffic lights, kept chanting to a minimum, and focused their efforts on waving signs saying “Please Liberate Hong Kong” and handing over letters to embassy officials.
The protesters are most likely aware that Hong Kong residents could eventually tire of widespread civil disobedience, as many did during the Occupy Central protests that paralyzed commercial districts in the territory for weeks in 2014.

Hong Kong protesters gearing up for G20 demonstrations amid fears of dwindling freedoms

By Morgan Cheung

Hong Kong activists are preparing for more protests this weekend in the hope of sending a message to world leaders gathering for the G20 summit in nearby Osaka, Japan.
"This is not about a power struggle," Civil Human Rights Front leader Bonnie Leung told the Associated Press. 

"This is about the values that make the world a better place. The whole world, whoever has connections with Hong Kong, would be stakeholders."
The semi-autonomous enclave has been the scene of massive protests for nearly two weeks after Beijing-backed Chief Executive Carrie Lam attempted to pass an extradition bill that would allow "criminal" suspects in Hong Kong to be apprehended and extradited to mainland China for trial. 

 The bill puts critics of China at risk of torture and unfair trials in the mainland and defeats the purpose of the “one country, two systems” framework established for Hong Kong since 1997.

Protesters sing after a march against an extradition bill outside Legislative Council in Hong Kong on Sunday, June 16. 

The millions and more who marched in a June 16 demonstration against the extradition bill -- which has been put on legislative hold -- are becoming agitated that Hong Kong may become just another Chinese city as Beijing expands its influence.
China has promised that Hong Kong would get to keep freedoms absent in the communist-ruled mainland until 2047. 

But 22 years after the British handover, many in Hong Kong believe they cannot live without those rights.
Samson Yuen, a professor at Hong Kong’s Lingnan University, told AP that the Hong Kong protestors come from all walks of life but share a common goal to preserve their freedoms.
“This protest has drawn everybody in town together,” he said. 

“They really value the freedom to speak up and protest.”
Most Hong Kong citizens come from families who fled poverty and political turmoil in the communist mainland. 

 While British rule did not bestow Hong Kong with the right of democracy, it laid the groundwork for strong civic institutions, educational systems, health care, and a laissez-faire trading system dominated by businesses dedicated to keeping Hong Kong as it is.
Further protests are also planned for the July 1 anniversary of the British handover of Hong Kong to China – it is unclear if the turnout for this demonstration will match those of earlier this month.

President Donald Trump ‘perfectly happy’ to impose more tariffs on Chinese goods if talks fail to progress, Steven Mnuchin says

US Treasury Secretary puts ball back in Beijing’s court, saying Washington prepared to ‘move forward’ as long as China accepts its terms
Karen Yeung

US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin with People‘s Bank of China governor Yi Gang. 

US President Donald Trump has no qualms about introducing more tariffs on Chinese imports if no progress is made on the stalled negotiations when he meets Chinese dictator Xi Jinping later this month, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Sunday.
Speaking to CNBC at the end of the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Meeting in Fukuoka, Japan, the official suggested the ball was now firmly back in Beijing’s court.
“If China wants to move forward with the deal, we’re prepared to move forward on the terms we’ve done,” he said.
“If China does not want to move forward, then President Trump is perfectly happy to move forward with tariffs to rebalance the relationship.”
Mnuchin said earlier on Twitter that he had had a “candid” discussion about trade with China’s central bank governor Yi Gang on the sidelines of the finance summit. 

That was the first face-to-face meeting of senior officials from the US and China since trade negotiations faltered last month.
“Had constructive meeting with PBOC [People’s Bank of China] Governor Yi Gang, during which we had a candid discussion on trade issues,” he said in a tweet alongside a photograph of the two men shaking hands.

The PBOC later published a short notice on its website saying the two officials exchanged views on global financial conditions, G20 affairs and topics of mutual concern.
Mnuchin said on Saturday that his meeting with Yi would cover only routine trade issues unrelated to the stalled negotiations.

The “next important meeting” on that matter would not happen until President Trump and Xi met at the G20 leaders summit in Osaka on June 28-29, he said.
Also on Saturday, the Treasury Secretary, who together with US trade representative Robert Lighthizer has led the US side in its trade war negotiations with China, said an agreement to resolve the dispute was 90 per cent complete and that the “US is prepared to negotiate to reach a historic deal”.
If China wanted to resume the negotiations from where the two sides had left off in early May, the US was ready to engage, he said on Saturday.
In the CNBC interview, Mnuchin said he had discussed with Yi the Trump-Xi meeting, but would not be drawn on any potential outcome of the Osaka summit.
“President Trump is going to need to make sure he’s clear that we’re moving in the right direction to a deal,” Mnuchin said. 

“The president will make a decision after the meeting.
“What I would say is we look forward to them meeting, they had a very productive discussion in Buenos Aires – that’s what led to these rounds of negotiation.”
On the subject of Huawei’s blacklisting, Mnuchin said it was a national security issue.
“Now, of course, President Trump, when he has the meeting, to the extent he gets certain comfort on Huawei or other issues, obviously we can talk about national security issues, but these are separate issues, they’re not being linked to trade,” he said.

Per un pugno di renminbi

Liu Xiaobo’s death exposes Western kowtowing to China’s despots
By ROWAN CALLICK
Serving both God and Xi Jinping: Angela Merkel and Donald Trump at the G20 summit in Hamburg.

The global response to the death of Chinese Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo and his crudely stage-managed cremation and burial at sea will be viewed by chroniclers as a historic watershed.
Democracy and universal human rights are losing their champions, and their power as paradigms.
The world is changing fast. 

At the start of this year — when Xi Jinping received an adulatory welcome from the World Economic Forum elite at Davos with his speech championing “economic globalisation” — it was clear that the centre of international gravity was shifting.
The rush of international leaders to laud the launch of Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative followed. 

Those accorded the loudest fanfares in Beijing for that event were Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte and Russia’s Vladimir Putin — three champions of the new populist authoritarianism.
The G20 in Hamburg followed, at which German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who accorded Xi an especially warm welcome, implicitly contrasted favourably the Chinese “win-win” cliche with the US view of globalisation, which she said was “about winners and losers”.
The G20’s vacuous communique was suffused with the vocabulary and views with which Beijing feels at home.
Soon, China will host the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa for a summit.
Each step in this impressive progress underlines China’s authoritarian culture as the new global norm.
A year ago, the International Court of Arbitration lambasted China’s occupation and arming of the South China Sea. 

But Beijing refused to participate in the process, said it would ignore any finding and would plough on with its strategy. 

Which it has.
The bureaucracies of the Western leaders, including Australia, carefully considered how to respond to Liu’s imminent death.
The result: national leaders said nothing, foreign ministers regretted Liu’s demise and asked if his widow, Liu Xia — charged with no offence — might be allowed to travel outside China.
When Liu was awarded the Nobel in 2010, symposiums were held, speeches made, Western leaders commented widely.
Erna Solberg, the Prime Minister of Norway, which hosts the Nobel Peace Prize and was punished economically by China after Liu’s award, said nothing in the weeks after news of his liver cancer leaked out. 

The former Amnesty International leader there, Petter Eide, said “silence was a sign of support for the Chinese authorities”.
The question that governments, corporations, and especially now also universities, in Western countries ask is not what would Jesus do — which they would think risible — but what would China do.
Journalists and satirists in the West are widely praised for their bravery in poking fun at Donald Trump, the softest target since King George III.
How many have joked about Xi Jinping, the most powerful person in China since Mao Zedong, and in some regards even more powerful? 

In China, even to draw a cartoon or caricature of him is at least banned, and is likely to lead to something worse.
People in the West wonder whether their companies, or economies, will be cut off from China’s wealth if they venture criticisms or make fun.
Even firms like Facebook that have leveraged off their maverick founding myths, end up playing Chinese rules. 

Apple just conceded control over its Chinese data to comply with Beijing’s new cybersecurity regulations as it stores information for its customers in China with a government-owned company.
Trump read out an impressive speech on Western values before the G20. 

But he negated every word when he breathlessly replied — a few hours after Liu had died — to a question about Xi: “He’s a friend of mine. I have great respect for him … a great leader … a very talented man … a very good man … a terrific guy. I like being with him a lot, and he’s a very special person.”
Russia is slipstreaming China’s elevation, sequestering Crimea just as China has done with the South China Sea, as the two form a tight unit in controlling the UN Security Council.
The video of US student Cody Irwin joking in fluent Mandarin about Trump — to laughter and applause — at his graduation speech at Peking University this month has been widely praised.
But when Chinese student Yang Shuping praised America’s “fresh air” and democracy in her commencement speech at Maryland University in May, she faced an avalanche of enmity.
Appropriate lessons are being drawn. 

In career opportunity terms, Irwin has cemented his future, Yang has sealed her fate.
The Sinologist David Shambaugh wrote last month: “Until China develops values that appeal universally, it will lack one of the core features of global leadership.”
However, it is the Western world that is losing contact with core values. 

It is valuing more highly the control and the authority that China is championing.

Sina Delenda Est

Pair of US bombers fly over South China Sea in latest challenge to Beijing
Fox News

Two U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancers assigned to the 9th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron fly a 10-hour mission from Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, with two South Korean air force F-15s in the vicinity of the Korean peninsula.

Two U.S. bombers flew over the South China Sea on Friday as President Trump and Xi Jinping prepare for a possible meeting on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Germany.
The U.S. Air Force said in a statement the two B-1B Lancers made the flight from after training with Japanese jet fighters in the East China Sea, according to Reuters.
"This is a clear demonstration of our ability to conduct seamless operations with all our allies," U.S. Air Force spokesman Maj. Ryan Simpson said.
China has made claims to nearly all of the South China Sea, which holds strategic international shipping routes. 

About $5 trillion of shipping trade passes through the region every year, according to Reuters. Beijing’s claims in the region have been contested by Brunei, Malaysia, Philippines and Vietnam.
The flight is the latest challenge from the U.S.
The USS Stethem, a guided-missile destroyer based in Japan, sailed within 12 nautical miles of Triton Island, which is part of the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea. 

It was the second time the Trump administration had made a freedom of navigation patrol since taking office in January.

China loses ‘soft power’ edge ahead of G20 summit

Sino-EU relations are dented by trade disputes as well as dissident’s illness 
By Tom Mitchell in Beijing

Until late last month Xi Jinping was looking forward to easy “soft power” victories at this week’s meetings with Angela Merkel in Berlin and the G20 summit in Hamburg — the latest opportunities for China to shine on a global stage.
But news that the country’s most famous political prisoner is gravely ill has thrown a spanner in the works, exposing the deep gulf that remains between Beijing and Berlin, while lingering trade and economic disputes continue to complicate Sino-EU relations.
“For Beijing the goal is to present itself as a generous, co-operative and friendly power,” says Sebastian Heilmann, president of the Mercator Institute for China Studies in Berlin.
“However, the two countries continue to have completely different understandings of basic political order, rule of law and civil society.” 
That divide has been evident since Chinese authorities confirmed last month that Liu Xiaobo, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate serving an 11-year term for subversion, was in hospital with late-stage liver cancer.
In its attempt to contain the international outcry that followed, the Chinese government has veered between stern rhetoric — warning that Mr Liu was a “criminal” unworthy of international sympathy — and attempts to show he was being treated with compassion.
Days after summoning western diplomats to private meetings to advise them that Mr Liu was too ill to travel abroad for medical treatment, Chinese officials on Wednesday invited German and US doctors to visit him in the northeastern city of Shenyang.
The same day, Xi was focused on panda and football diplomacy in Berlin.
He and the German chancellor visited Berlin Zoo, which recently received two new giant pandas from China, and watched a football match together.
People briefed on the leaders’ meetings say Ms Merkel raised Mr Liu’s condition and offered to have him treated in Germany. 
On Wednesday, a German foreign ministry official said only that Berlin supported a “humanitarian solution” for Mr Liu.
Mr Liu’s illness is a reminder that while Beijing and Berlin will present a united front at the G20 summit when it comes to arguments with US president Donald Trump over “global commons” issues such as trade and climate change, Asia and Europe’s two largest economies have stark differences.
Ms Merkel is critical of the market access barriers German companies face in China and has also expressed concerns about Chinese corporate acquisitions in Europe.
These issues came to the fore early last month when Li Keqiang visited Berlin and Brussels.
Li arrived just after Mr Trump had raised doubts about his administration’s commitment to the Nato alliance, clashed with Ms Merkel and other G7 leaders in Sicily on issues from Nato to trade, and formally announced the US would withdraw from the Paris accord on climate change.
But China’s premier achieved the geopolitical equivalent of missing an open goal.
According to three people briefed on Li’s discussions in Brussels, the two sides initially agreed to put aside a disagreement over whether China should be granted “market economy status” by the World Trade Organisation, paving the way for a joint statement in defence of the Paris accord.
If granted, market economy status would make it more difficult to penalise Chinese exporters for dumping. 
EU negotiators were instead shocked when, after a break in the talks, their Chinese counterparts raised the MES issue again, scuppering plans for the joint statement on climate. 
Chinese analysts suggest Beijing has learnt its lesson from Li’s rocky European tour.
“After Trump’s election and Brexit, China and Germany need each other to protect globalisation,” says Ding Chun, a European expert at Fudan University in Shanghai.
“Market economy status should not be a big issue this time.”

Rogue Nation

China is frantically trying to make sure Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo doesn’t die during the G20

By Nicole Kwok and Isabella Steger

Time is running out.

Chinese authorities have kept political dissident and Nobel Prize winner Liu Xiaobo in prison since 2008, only to “release” him last month because he has late-stage liver cancer. 

Now Beijing wants to look like it is pulling out all the stops to make sure Liu is kept alive—at least in the immediate future.
The Chinese government has invited foreign medical experts, including from the US and Germany, to help treat Liu, according to a statement posted yesterday (link in Chinese) by the justice bureau in Shenyang. 

Liu is being treated at a hospital in the northern city, the First Hospital of China Medical University, which also posted a statement yesterday (link in Chinese) containing the names of the medical professionals treating Liu, including a liver expert who is deputy head of the Liver Surgery Committee of the Chinese Medical Association.
Beijing’s apparent change of heart toward Liu didn’t come out of nowhere. 

Rights group Amnesty International said that the apparent softening attitude is “an attempt to limit international criticism,” as foreign governments have been pressing Beijing to allow Liu to receive treatment overseas. 

And this week just happens to be when the G20 summit is taking place in Germany, where China plans to continue portraying itself as the world’s new champion of free trade and openness at a time of perceived US retreat. 

A Nobel Prize winner dying of cancer due to maltreatment by China would be quite inconvenient.
Since Liu was granted medical parole in late June, China has been trying to show the world that he is being treated well. 

Last week, a video showing scenes of a man resembling Liu in prison surfaced online, though the source of the video was not clear. 

The man resembling Liu is shown to be undergoing various medical tests, and in one scene is visited by Liu’s wife Liu Xia.
But as Amnesty’s secretary general Salil Shetty said, “Time is running out for Liu Xiaobo”—and perhaps much faster than people had thought. Today an undated photo of Liu and his wife started circulating on the internet, with rumors swirling that Liu’s family have been told to be on “24-hour standby.”


Liu, 61, was sentenced to 11 years for “inciting subversion of state power” as he called for democratic reform in China as one of the authors of the manifesto known as “Charter 08.” 

He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010 but was unable to receive his award in Oslo. 

His wife is under house arrest.