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I Have No Enemies: My Final Statement (2009)
- larrysalibra 9y agoIf aren't sure who Liu Xiaobo is or want to learn more, this essay by China expert Perry Link is excellent: http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2017/07/13/the-passion-of-liu-xiaobo/ http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2017/07/13/the-passion-of-liu-x...
- dis-sys 9y agoSuch censored view is not good for anyone. "It took Hong Kong 100 years to become what it is. Given the size of China, certainly it would need 300 years of colonisation for it to become like what Hong Kong is today. I even doubt whether 300 years would be enough." Liu Xiaobo made himself quite clear back in the 1980s. The in 1996, he further argued that "progress in China depends on westernisation and the more westernisation, the more progress." Western, independent source here: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/dec/15/nobel-winner-liu-xiaobo-chinese-dissident https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/dec/15/nobel-... I thought China should be allowed to preserve it own culture and independence. Liu seemed to hold a quite different idea. btw, it must be quite a shock for you to know such fact. I mean please feel free to downvote if you agree with Liu's very repressive view on how China should be colonized by the west for 300 years to get better argument. The whole "progress in China depends on westernisation" also sounds like a cultural genocide to me.
- charsifood 9y agoEDIT: @dang, please remove my post.
- amygdyl 9y ago"My tendency to idealize Western civilization arises from my nationalistic desire to use the West in order to reform China" I cannot read this without translating it in the way I imagined it would be heard in the offices of power, to mean he is freely admitting to the desire to subvert his own nation with foreign culture, no matter or difference his meaning or intent. I'm being as literal as ever I can be, but I have understood that sentence as if I just read it being said about my country and not China. I would not be amused with someone saying that about England.
- literallycancer 9y agoThat's pretty much what happens any time someone tries to improve their country though. You look at what works elsewhere, and then you do it.
- amygdyl 9y agoI always felt that China simply faced much starker realities and choices than ever we are able to fully appreciate when we complain about the systems they have. I'm no Sinophile, and I think Great Britain should have built a floating desalination plant before ceding Hong Kong Island. But the little I know about Chinas history, the fragmentation of historically antagonistic races among the Chinese diaspora we call a people, and the immense variety of issues that have developed in isolation unique to their world, I believe all conspire to alienate the most rational observers from true neutrality. My mind blows fuses just contemplating the pressures and tensions that abound seemingly everywhere in their daily lives.
- jackvalentine 9y agoIs he actually arguing that China should be colonised? Or just making a comparison with Hong Kong's development and hypothesizing how long it'd take the mainland under similar yoke and rule.
- ideal0227 9y ago> 三百年殖民地。香港一百年殖民地变成今天这样，中国那么大，当然需要三百年殖民地，才会变成今天香港这样，三百年够不够，我还有怀疑。 I am a decently educated Chinese native speaker. The quoted Chinese sentence from Liu is not acceptable to me. I do not think it is a direct comparison against HongKong. I am fine with him arguing about changing the political situation of China or whatsoever. And, actually, the discussion on that should be more open. However, I cannot agree on his view about changing China through colonial no matter what he tries to justify. And I believe no rational Chinese people will agree him on this.
- colordrops 9y agoI can read Chinese as well and I don't see anything opinionated in that quote. There is nothing that says anything positive or negative about Hong Kong. It just says that he suspects that China would have to be colonized for 300 years to reach the same state as Hong Kong, due to its large size. He does not say whether it would be a good or bad thing. I don't even notice an undertone.
- ideal0227 9y ago> I can read Chinese as well I am a native Chinese, which also implies I understand more of the language context. Also it implies I probably can share more of the sentiment as other Chinese people do. So, yes, there is a difference between how people view the exact same content. And I was trying to clarify that. > China would have to be colonized for 300 years to reach the same state as Hong Kong Why China needs to reach the same state as Hongkong through Colonial? Does he feel HongKong was at a worse state compared to China at that point? Or HongKong was at a better state? And, yes, no matter what state Hongkong was at due to the Colonial, China SHOULD NEVER go that path. That is where I cannot agree with Liu. Any one can justify his words. But I will still hold my opinion on this specific issue after I read quite a lot about Liu, about what he said, about what he wrote, in both Chinese and English articles and documentary.
- michaelmrose 9y agoCultural genocide is an abomination of a term. It misappropriates a word that conjures up unspeakable horror of mass extermination in order to make suppression of cultural activities / works as bad as mass murder. Its about as bad as statutory rape.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- eru 9y ago> I thought China should be allowed to preserve it own culture and independence. Alas, the 'cultural revolution' destroyed most of that culture. You can still find some remnants of parts of it in the overseas chinese communities of southeast asia.
- xupybd 9y agoHere's the thing. You don't have to agree with his political views. You don't have to pick a side. But you can still see his treatment as bad. This man is in prison for disagreeing with the government, that is very bad.
- qwertyegg 9y agoWhat is not mentioned in Perry's writing is that Liu's claim that China needs to be colonized for 300 years (https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/10/liu-xiaobo-and-the-300-years-problem/64916/ https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/10/li...) has put him as a shameful character in Chinese history. He might have thousands of supporters in China, of course, it's a country with 1.3b people. It doesn't matter, most people see him as a pitiful puppet of western government, and he is, by accepting numerous funds from NED, and probably CIA as well (http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/Liu-Xiaobo_NED_CIA.html http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/Liu-Xiaobo_NED_CIA.htm...). Yea he is not a hero, I don't care if he won Nobel prize, he is a trash with a bone, that's all he is.
- sctb 9y agoPersonal insults like this don't belong on HN. If you have a point to make, it needs to be made civilly and substantively. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- TokenDiversity 9y agoI'm surprised China gets away with so much! They recently banned kids from being named Mohammad. And had Imams dance. I wish our war-mongering republicans would switch their attention to countries that really violate human rights. EDIT: Of course they do much worse, I was pointing to the fact that not a peep was heard on Fox or CNN.
- sidcool 9y agoIf one has money and power, one can get away with almost everything.
- yurofish 9y agoNot sure banning kids from being named a certain name really compares to the actual human rights violations at place in China...
- sk0g 9y agoThere was a Kiwi couple who weren't allowed to name their kid Lucifer a few years ago. That name is about as religiously charged too. As a bonus, not being named Mo helps you not get picked for random check-ups.
- yurofish 9y agoMy point is that these are pretty petty problems compared to actual travesties committed by the Chinese government. There are bigger fish to fry than what you can name your child.
- TokenDiversity 9y agoIts not random- its based on pure statistics. I wished at least "hackers" here would understand. More than that actually, there are politicians who are notorious for being hand-in-gloves in their home countries. They always get picked for these "random" checks in the US.
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- zuolan 9y agoAs a Chinese, I need to clarify some facts. I think that the Communist Party of China made a really big mistake, which caused a serious impact on China's national image. But I also do not agree with Liu Xiaobo's political views. Finally, China's political environment indeed bad, but most of the Western media coverage distorted the facts, including the Liu Xiaobo event.
- 23lk4jj4j2 9y agoAs someone who visits China almost every year, and has spent quite a lot of time there including for study please consider what I'm going to say not as a criticism, but an attempt to help you understand how your words will likely be received. You haven't clarified any facts, you've just made two statements of opinion without any supporting evidence or greater explanation.
- colordrops 9y agoAs someone who lived in china for 9 years, and married a Chinese woman, perhaps you could recognize that you might live in a very specific bubble in a culture very different from China, and that the perspective is so different that reaching out and trying to understand this person's world view might be more productive than tritely dismissing the comment on technicalities. I hate China's government and the way they operate but I also recognize that the world is very complex and cultures are ancient and have very different but also successful mechanisms of operation. On the same note I would not write off an American's perspective because the president is a wack job.
- 23lk4jj4j2 9y agoI would write off someone posting about any country if their entire statement could be boiled down to "X is reporting it wrong" without any evidence or examples... It just so happens that this kind of statement is common in the Chinese people that I speak with. You can make a very good case that Western media is terrible in its China reporting, but a blunt statement like that isn't going to be received well in a community like HN that likes to think of itself as critical. As I said, I was trying to help them understand how their statement was likely to be received not "tritely dismissing the comment on technicalities." which is an interpretation entirely of your own that wasn't contained in my original post.
- gentro 9y agoYou ever get the feeling this Nobel Prize and the western media's fawning coverage of Liu Xiaobo is really just about westerners making themselves feel better? China will get democracy one day. It will be because a large swath of Chinese people want it. Although there have been some high profile dissidents in China over the last 30 years, including Liu Xiaobo and the 1989 students, most Chinese are probably not ready for their message of political openness. They're still focused on lower levels of the Maslow hierarchy like shelter and food. These dissidents have the bad luck of poor timing. In another 30 or 40 years when China is fully developed, their ideas may be well accepted among citizenry and party reformers.
- mc32 9y ago>You ever get the feeling this Nobel Prize and the western media's fawning coverage of Liu Xiaobo is really just about westerners making themselves feel better? Not really. Imagine if the Nobel institute only granted the prize to Europeans. Imagine the furore that would cause. Now, sure, the winners have often been controversial. Here, I can't disagree. I mean, what's not to like about someone who wants to change their own country for the better?
- gentro 9y agoSure, the man himself seems beyond reproach, and I admire his courage. But in another sense that's just what I mean, that we can sit here, read this news, and nod approvingly at this man's actions. But beyond our own consumption of this narrative, his efforts are pretty much irrelevant to any eventual democratization in China.
- mc32 9y agoThat sounds defeatist. It all has to start somewhere. Someone has to get the ideas rolling. The road to democracy in the western world was long and tortuous and stretched back a millennium or more, but we got there. His ideas are not in vain.
- jknoepfler 9y ago
- throwa34943way 9y agoTo some in the west, China is a land of opportunities, a booming economy with tech giants and a supply chain for the industrial world. To others it's a bloody dictatorship that assassinated thousands of people for the sole crime of speaking their mind in 1989. To me it's the embodiment of the hypocrisy of the west when it comes to the defense human rights. Let's be frank, we didn't abolish slavery, we just outsourced it to make it more acceptable. It's also a proof that capitalism doesn't need democracy or free-speech to function.
- philippnagel 9y agoCapitalism needs government guaranteed private property. Was there ever the need for anything else?
- sametmax 9y agoExactly. Too many people in our countries are very pushy about their value system but see no problem communicating about it through orwelian services using hardawre built by children. I mean, I'm veggie but I wouldn't dare considering eat lovers bad persons given what else I consume. That doesn't mean we should feel guilty. It's a hard problem. But that's certainly means we should not feel entitled. And boy do we love to be.
- peteretep 9y agoEquation of work conditions in China with slavery is flatly idiotic.
- InclinedPlane 9y agoHe's equating slave labor in China with slavery, which is ... not? idiotic, I imagine. At the outbreak of the US Civil War there were about 4 million slaves living in America. Today there are, according to international estimates, about 3.4 million slaves living and working in China[1]. To claim that it is a non-existent problem or that it isn't severe or that it doesn't merit outrage or to imagine that it is somehow on a different level to the chattel slavery of 19th century America is to turn a blind eye to the truth or to try to finely grade suffering in a way that is dehumanizing. [1] https://www.globalslaveryindex.org/country/china/ https://www.globalslaveryindex.org/country/china/
- Elect2 9y agoNow in Chinese weibo.com, if your message includes "javascript", it can not be sent and return "content is illegal!". A guess is that the word "javascript" includes "RIP".
- explodingcamera 9y agoThat's just a poor implementation of xss prevention
- z3t1 9y agoThat's not the case. The problem only started to pop up several hours ago.
- maaaats 9y agoAs an aside, even though the Norwegian government has nothing to do with the prize, China quickly ended lots of relations with Norway, losing Norwegian companies billions. Now, the government is too afraid to publicly speak about Liu, to not sour what they have spent years trying to fix. Weak.
- hunglee2 9y agoThe weakness is democracy. The Norwegian governing party - whoever it is - now knows that China's default position to perceived outside interference is disproportionate economic punishment, leading to pressure on the living standards of the voters they depend on. Autocratic states have discovered a critical weakness in the representative democracy and there's little we can currently do about it
- pmontra 9y agoWhat if Norway was another autocratic state? Economic punishment could have made them bent anyway. Maybe your point is that autocracies bend less than democracies and you could be right: dictators usually don't care about economic sanctions because what they care about is to stay in charge. A poor or wealthy country doesn't matter much. Actually sanctions help them to build a narrative of world against the country and strengthen their grip. I'm not aware of what happened in Norway after those Chinese sanctions. They could democratically decided that it was ethically worth losing those businesses. Any Norwegian people here?
- comradeHulaHula 9y agoNorwegian here! I'd like to take the opportunity to say that the feeling at the time was that we got left out in the storm by ourselves by other western countries once the Chinese sanctions came on. In the direct aftermath everyone else just kinda looked the other way, and in the long run there is no way a tiny country like us can withstand that pressure over time.
- lr4444lr 9y ago
- utbabya 9y agoFYI, there's an interesting commentator machine operating in China for public manipulation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party I'm not ruling out genuine believer of their opinions but there's also this possibility. They're getting pretty sophisticated and sometimes instead of supporting the government, their goal would be disinformation, induce hatred (i.e. troll) to divide and conquer. If you're interested in the perspective of some HongKongness (myself included) I'd recommend this film https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Years_(2015_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Years_(2015_film) It's so touching to me because it's dystopian but really just exaggeration what I perceive in real life that how the changes are creeping in during recent years, continual development of public swaying psyops is just one of them. Not that I like Britain nor UN either as they both dropped the ball of enforcing the Sino-British Joint Declaration or giving HongKong a chance to decide its own fate as other post-colony.
- dis-sys 9y agoThis thread has nothing relate to Hong Kong. Could you please stop introducing such completely off-topic stuff? Thank you.
- utbabya 9y agoWell there's comparison of cultural and citizen quality between HongKong an China in some heated debates here. Or do you think my comment should be censored?
- rainingmonkey 9y agoI read a paper recently examining output of the 50c party based on leaked emails (I can't find a link now), which showed that rather than spreading hatred and jumping to defend the Chinese government, the 50c party actually avoid any remotely controversial topic and instead just post "Go China!" "Woo, look at $cool_thing China's done!" "Look how strong/advanced/kind/wise China is!" Of course whenever anyone writes anything pro-China on the internet, people are going to assume it's the 50c party, just like I assume anything pro-Microsoft here comes from a paid shill or a bot ;)
- LiweiZ 9y agoUntil those so-called activists don't have to looking for funding from sides with their own agendas, or more clearly, having stable and large cashflow, they are fighting for their own fames and interests instead of the people living on that land. For outsiders, they are icons/symbols. For most of insiders, they are someone unrelated to their life. In events like this, both sides can consume the news and get what they want without anything really meaningful happens. This is a kind of hopeless in the real world. Icons get selected and pushed to their directions and have no means to actually do anything useful. As an average Joe, the best thing to do is reducing this kind of consumption, taking care of yourself and, hopefully, not getting involved in/caught. This can somewhat explain, from one dimension, why there is no truly strong and cohesive Chinese community in the western world. More money only spoils unrestricted kids even more. They don't settle down for the progress they gain, just want even more. That's a DNA in the core of the whole system and affects people within. There is nothing to look for, just strong dark currents.
- petraeus 9y agoCulture-lock is the very reason China is having such a hard time become a modern technology leading state. Its the same as in martial arts, the fixed form practices got absolutely decimated by MMA, diversity is a strength and modern cultures are very bad at accepting outsiders.