Taiwan is the kind of society that Liu Xiaobo envisioned for China

What a New Sculpture Reveals About Tensions Between China and Taiwan

By SUYIN HAYNES/TAIPEI

A sculpture of the Chinese Nobel peace prize recipient Liu Xiaobo who passed away one year ago can be seen outside City Hall on July 13, 2018, in Taipei, Taiwan.

Artist Aihua Cheng has worked feverishly for the past four months in her scenic Baisha Bay studio on Taiwan’s northern coast. 

For her latest project, the oil painter and sculptor read the extended works of the late Chinese Nobel Peace Laureate Liu Xiaobo—while creating a three-part sculpture dedicated to the writer and dissident, who died as a political prisoner last year. 

“I completed the work just yesterday,” she told TIME, shortly before her creation was shown to the public for the first time outside Taipei’s city hall on July 13.
Titled I Have No Enemies, Cheng’s piece incorporates a line drawing of Liu looking out over a bronze open book inscribed with his writings. 

“I hope that his books and thoughts can continue impacting China,” she says. 

Unveiled on the one-year anniversary of Liu’s death, the sculpture was planned by exiled democracy activist Wu’er Kaixi as a tribute to his former mentor. 

“Taiwanese people joining us in erecting this sculpture are telling China that we have not forgotten our values,” says Wu’er, who was forced to flee China after the Tiananmen Square protests and settled in Taiwan in 1996.
That message will resonate with many on this island, which began to embrace democracy after nearly four decades of martial law ended in 1987. 

The mainland still views Taiwan, an island of 23 million people that lies 112 miles off China’s coast, as its sovereign territory despite the island’s breakaway in 1949 at the end of the Chinese Civil War.
Supported by Reporters Without Borders, the crowdfunded sculpture project is intended to represent the ideals of freedom and democracy championed by Liu in his co-authored Charter 08 manifesto. 

Liu encouraged Chinese citizens to envisage a democratic future, “a modern means for achieving government truly ‘of the people, by the people, and for the people.’” 

That document ultimately led to his arrest in 2009, his Nobel Peace Prize the following year and his imprisonment until he died from late-stage liver cancer.
But the commemoration of a Chinese dissident comes at a time when tensions with Beijing are already running high. 

Taiwan is struggling for international recognition as China ramps up efforts to isolate the island. 

The day after the statue was unveiled, the head of China’s Taiwan Affairs office released a statement saying that “the vain separatist attempts for ‘Taiwan independence’ will only lead to a dead end.” Add an unpredictable U.S. President and a snowballing trade war between the world’s two biggest economies into the mix and you have a cross-strait relationship that is more fragile—and perhaps more dangerous—than ever.
When the news of Liu’s death was announced last year, Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen tweeted a statement expressing Taiwan’s hopes that Chinese people could one day “enjoy the God-given rights of freedom and democracy.” 

The statement, issued in both Chinese and English, was seen as an affront to Beijing—much like Tsai’s presidential victory in January 2016.
Tsai’s Democratic Progressive Party promised “an era of new politics in Taiwan,” breaking with the Nationalist Party (KMT) government policy, which favored closer ties with China. 

Under the 1992 Consensus, China and Taiwan agreed that there is one China—allowing each other to disagree about the status of Taiwan. 

Tsai’s election changed that. 

Her party supports independence and refuses to acknowledge the Consensus. 

Since Tsai took office in May 2016, China’s dictator Xi Jinping has not met with her but has continued relations with the KMT opposition party.
The lack of any diplomatic relations with Beijing does not seem to have deterred Tsai.

“She will continue to build on the belief that democracy can be integrated into an ethnically Chinese society and the idea that Taiwan can be an example to China in this sense,” says Sheryn Lee, a lecturer in security studies at Macquarie University.
Taiwan looks like the kind of society that Liu Xiaobo envisioned for China. That makes tributes to him contentious. 

According to Reuters, supporters of him and his widow Liu Xia were pressured by Chinese authorities to not hold any commemoration events. 

And although Liu Xia was released from eight years of house arrest on July 10, the move came amid a growing crackdown on dissidents in China. 

A day later, China sentenced prominent democracy activist Qin Yongmin to 13 years of imprisonment for “subversion of state power.”
As well as quashing dissent at home, Xi’s newly consolidated grip on power has allowed him to increase pressure on Taiwan—just as Tsai is trying to strengthen her position ahead of midterm elections in November. 

“Beijing probably wants to remind the Taiwanese public that they are paying a price for supporting Tsai and her party,” says Richard C. Bush, former Chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan, the island’s de facto U.S. embassy.
A visible reminder of that price is the ratcheting up of military actions in the Taiwan Strait. 

In April, Chinese state media reported that the navy held its largest ever military display in a spectacular show of force in the South China Sea as well as the first naval military exercises with live fire drills in the strait since 2015.
Analysts say such exercises signal Beijing’s intention to send a message to the U.S. amid rising trade tensions and closer ties to Taiwan. 

While the U.S. formally endorses the “one China” policy, it has had an unofficial relationship with Taiwan since 1979. 

And President Donald Trump has broken an un-precedented series of protocols since his Inauguration, such as accepting a congratulatory phone call from Tsai; passing the Taiwan Travel Act, which encourages U.S. officials to visit the island; and unveiling a new $250 million de facto embassy building in Taipei. 

“No one really expected the level of interference that Trump had. He broke all of the rules that have been set down with China-Taiwan relations,” says Lee.

These moves have also been accompanied by gestures of U.S. military support for Taiwan, right under Beijing’s nose. 

Last year, Trump approved a deal to sell Taiwan $1.42 billion worth of arms in a massive deal that was immediately condemned by China. 

On July 7, two U.S. warships passed through the Taiwan Strait—merely a day after Washington imposed tariffs on $34 billion of Chinese imports in the last shot fired in the superpower showdown.
Despite Trump’s seemingly strong commitment to Taiwan, the backdrop of a trade war has nevertheless worried local politicians. 

“We share the same fundamental values as the U.S.,” says Huang Kuo-chang, chairman of the pro-independence New Power Party. 

“But we are not so naive as to be unable to understand that sometimes we become the bargaining chip between China and the United States.”
China has also accelerated efforts to diplomatically isolate the island. 

Since taking office, Tsai has lost allies in Burkina Faso, the Dominican Republic, Panama, and São Tomé and Príncipe, leaving only 18 others worldwide. 

“Some say that in a few years, the number of allies Taiwan has could drop to zero,” says Rwei-Ren Wu, a research fellow at Taipei’s Academia Sinica. 

A prominent advocate for Taiwanese independence, Wu was barred from entering Hong Kong to speak at a conference last year.
Taiwan aspires to be a member of the U.N., but is not officially recognized. 

In May, for the second year in a row, it was denied access to the World Health Organization’s annual assembly—a move denounced by both Tsai’s government and independent watchdogs as a surrender to pressure from Beijing.
That pressure has started to affect private companies. 

In recent months, airlines and retailers have clashed with Beijing over references to disputed territories, including Taiwan and Tibet. 

In January, authorities shut down the Chinese websites of Marriott International after it listed Taiwan as an individual nation; in May, Gap apologized for a T-shirt with a map of China that omitted Taiwan. 

Beijing has also demanded that foreign airlines edit references to Taiwan to reflect the island as part of the mainland. 

Dismissed by the White House as “Orwellian nonsense,” U.S. airlines including Delta and American now have a July 25 deadline to comply with Beijing’s line on the issue.
In Taipei, the memorial sculpture is accompanied by an empty chair, symbolizing Liu’s absence at the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize ceremony because of his imprisonment. 

Cheng acknowledges that a sculpture alone is unlikely to impact China. 

“But I think the words, the thoughts of Liu Xiaobo will,” Cheng says. 

The sculpture—previewed only briefly on July 13—is still waiting on permanent approval from the city. 

For Taiwan too, the road ahead looks uncertain. 

“There is no reason for us to be treated as second-class global citizens,” says Huang. 

“If our goodwill toward China is unilateral, what do we gain from maintaining the status quo?”

Criminal Nation

After a Famed Prisoner Dies in China, Taiwan Fears for Another
By CHRIS HORTON

Pictures of Lee Ming-cheh, left, a rights advocate from Taiwan, and Tashi Wangchuk, an education advocate from Tibet, during a commemoration last month in Taiwan of the 1989 pro-democracy crackdown in China. Both men are in Chinese custody. 

TAIPEI, Taiwan — For many in Taiwan, the death in custody last week of the Chinese Nobel Peace laureate Liu Xiaobo had double relevance.
It was a reminder of how much Taiwan — but not China — has changed politically since the late 1980s, when both were one-party, authoritarian states.
On Saturday, Taiwan, now a full-fledged democracy, celebrated the 30th anniversary of the end of four decades of martial law. 

On Tuesday, at the opening of the first Asian bureau of Reporters Without Borders, an organization that advocates press freedom, Wu’er Kaixi, a leader of the 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing, dedicated a moment of silence to Mr. Liu, while praising Taiwan’s progress.
But the death of Mr. Liu, who was serving an 11-year prison sentence for his role in Charter 08, a manifesto for peaceful political change, also deepened concerns over the fate of Lee Ming-cheh, a human rights advocate from Taiwan who went missing after his arrival in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong in March.
More than a week passed before Chinese officials announced that Mr. Lee had been detained. 

In April, Mr. Lee’s wife, Lee Ching-yu, was blocked from entering China, where she said she hoped to take him his blood-pressure medication. 

In late May, Mr. Lee was officially arrested on a charge of “subverting state power.”

It has not been lost on Mr. Lee’s family and friends, or the news media in Taiwan, that the charge he faces is similar to the one brought against Mr. Liu, of “inciting subversion of state power.”

Hours after Mr. Liu’s death, Taiwan’s state-owned Central News Agency reported that the governing Democratic Progressive Party had issued a statement calling on China to release Mr. Liu’s widow, Liu Xia, who was placed under house arrest in 2010, as well as Mr. Lee.
Comparing the plights of Mr. Liu and Mr. Lee, a commentary this month in a Taiwan newspaper, Liberty Times, asked: “Will Lee Ming-cheh be the next Liu Xiaobo?”
“What’s similar is that Lee Ming-cheh and Liu Xiaobo were both arrested for the crime of ‘subversion of state power,’” it said. 

“What’s different is that Liu Xiaobo is Chinese, whereas Lee Ming-cheh is Taiwanese. After Lee Ming-cheh entered prison, will he ‘get sick’ or be forcefully ‘sickened’? This deserves attention.”
Nongovernmental organization workers from Taiwan who travel to China should remain on a high state of alert, the commentary added. 

“You absolutely do not want to become the next Lee Ming-cheh,” it said.
In a letter to The Washington Post published on Sunday, Stanley Kao, Taiwan’s envoy to the United States, also connected the cases.
“Mr. Liu’s lifelong beliefs are the core values we live by in Taiwan, namely an abiding respect for human rights and due process of law,” Mr. Kao wrote, adding that China should immediately release Mr. Lee.
Beijing severed official communication channels with Taiwan in the fall after it became apparent that President Tsai Ing-wen, who took office in May last year, would not bow to Chinese pressure to endorse the “1992 consensus,” which holds that China and Taiwan agree there is “one China” — with each side reserving its own interpretation of what that means. 

Beijing has insisted that self-ruled Taiwan is part of its territory, and it has not renounced the use of force to achieve unification.
That has left the Tsai administration with limited tools to press Beijing for information about Mr. Lee. Ms. Tsai — one of the first government leaders to issue a statement mourning Mr. Liu’s death — has taken to her Twitter account to call for Mr. Lee’s release.
If history is any guide, progress on Mr. Lee’s case is unlikely in the coming weeks. 

The Chinese Communist Party is preparing for its 19th Party Congress this fall, a meeting that will determine the leadership lineup under Xi Jinping for the next five years and influence the succession beyond that. 

In the jockeying for power, concessions to Taiwan could be interpreted as a sign of weakness.
Eeling Chiu, secretary general of the Taiwan Association for Human Rights, has supported Ms. Lee’s efforts to rally international pressure on China to free her husband. 

Ms. Chiu said that there had been no information about Mr. Lee’s situation aside from occasional statements from Beijing, such as the announcement last month that a lawyer had been appointed to represent him.
“We haven’t heard anything new since they announced they’d appointed him a lawyer,” she said in an interview, dismissing the gesture as “fake.” 

“We don’t even know who the lawyer is. If you’re trying to provide for the rights of someone involved in legal proceedings, getting in touch with their family is one of the most basic things you should do.”
The Tsai administration says it will continue to work on Mr. Lee’s behalf. 

“The government is doing everything it can to secure Mr. Lee’s release as soon as possible,” Alex Huang, the spokesman for the presidential office, said on Tuesday.

Criminal Nation

China murdered Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo: Reporters Without Borders
KYODO

In this Saturday file photo provided by the Shenyang Municipal Information Office, Liu Xia, wife of jailed Nobel Peace Prize winner and Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, holds a portrait of him during his funeral at a funeral parlor in Shenyang in northeastern China's Liaoning Province. The photo shows (from left) Liu Hui, younger brother of Liu Xia, Liu Xia and Liu Xiaoxuan, younger brother of Liu Xiaobo holding his cremated remains.

RSF Secretary-General Christophe Deloire : “We can clearly state that Liu Xiaobo was murdered by the lack of care.” 

TAIPEI – Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontières), which advocates freedom of information around the world, on Tuesday accused Chinese authorities of having murdered Nobel Peace Prize-winning dissident Liu Xiaobo by denying him proper medical care during his incarceration.
“We can clearly state that Liu Xiaobo was murdered by the lack of care,” RSF Secretary-General Christophe Deloire told a news conference held to formally launch an RSF bureau in Taipei, the Paris-headquartered media rights watchdog’s first in Asia.
Deloire rejected the claim that Chinese authorities did not know that Liu, who died last Thursday of multiple organ failure related to liver cancer, was seriously ill until just weeks before his death.
He urged democratic governments around the world to work for the release of other political prisoners in China, as well as jailed journalists, before it is too late for them, while he also called for Liu’s widow, Liu Xia, to be freed from house arrest.
If it happens again, he said, it “will be a failure for all democracies and for our own societies.”
Liu Xia was last seen in photographs and a video clip provided by Chinese authorities of her husband’s funeral and sea burial on Saturday.
A Hong Kong-based concern group, the Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy, quoted an unnamed relative of hers as saying Tuesday that she and her brother have been sent to southwestern China’s Yunnan Province on a “traveling tour” and that she would be allowed to return home in Beijing no earlier than Thursday.
Shirin Ebadi, an Iranian lawyer and human rights activist who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003, proposed at the news conference in Taipei that Taiwan erect a monument to Liu and designate July 13 as the day to commemorate his death.
“It is our duty to remember who died to make a better life for us,” she said.
Wu’er Kaixi, known for his leading role in the 1989 Tiananmen Square democracy protests, agreed, saying remembering a person like Liu is “the most humble but important power an individual possesses against tyranny.”
“I call upon the whole world to let each other know that we are determined to remember,” said the Chinese dissident, who serves as a member of the RSF Emeritus Board.
The RSF’s bureau in Taipei will monitor press freedom in China, Hong Kong, Macau, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Mongolia and Taiwan.
The association said it chose Taiwan due to the self-ruled island’s central geographic location and ease of operating logistics, as well as its status of being the freest place in Asia in the group’s annual World Press Freedom Index ranking.
Praising Taiwan’s strides, Deloire said Monday in a meeting with President Tsai Ing-wen, “We hope this ‘freedom laboratory’ will be an example for the rest of the continent, amid a global decline in media freedom.”
“To this end, Taiwan must resist violations of the independence of its journalists, especially those carried out under Beijing’s influence, and must improve its legislation,” he said.
In his remarks Tuesday, Deloire said RSF decided against establishing its first Asian bureau in Hong Kong due to concerns over limits on freedom of speech there and possible surveillance of its staff.
He said the Chinese government, like that in Russia, “wants to set up a new world media order” and “wants to change the world before we succeed to change China.”