Liu Xiaobo: An anachronistic Challenge

Liu Xiaobo, Chinese dissident writer, was sentenced to 11 years for his leading role in the Charter 08, an imitation of the Charter 77 initiated by Havel. Obviously Liu over many years has been determined to make an ideological stand against the Chinese state power. Chinese ruling clique has taken the challenge as intended and make Liu a show case punishment.

"Charter 77 (Charta 77 in Czech and in Slovak) was an informal civic initiative in Czechoslovakia from 1977 to 1992, named after the document Charter 77 from January 1977. Founding members and architects were Václav Havel, Jan Patočka, Zdeněk Mlynář, Jiří Hájek, and Pavel Kohout. After the 1989 Velvet Revolution, many of its members played important roles in Czech and Slovak politics. The group was linked to the National Endowment for Democracy."

What the Charter 77 has told us is: 1. those drafters later came to power, they are activists for political power; 2. it was closely linked to NED in the US; it functioned as a political opposition althought it claimed not to serve as a basis of political opposition and operate within the law of the country.

The Charter 08 is almost the same, except that it is not clear how much it is linked to the NED. But ideologically it share the same goal as NED and even the US' position on China. Its pedigree is from the cold war era. And it is obvious to the Chinese authority which has long abandoned its Communist ideology. In this sense, the Charter 08 is anachronistic.

The Czeck authority in 1970s treated those signitories harshly. The Charter 77 has support groups, but it did not get wide influence until the end of communist system in the east Europe. It remained mainly as a potential threat to the Communist regime waiting for its time to come. Chinese authority must have taken lessons from this and give those Charter 08 drafters similar treatment.

Comaring the two cases of Charter 08 and 77, the differences are obvious. 1. China is a very different country; 2. the time and outside environment is different. Chinese authority is no longer a die hard communist party, but a very power- interests group. China is a rising economy which is playing more and more important part in the interdependence of international economy, hence it prevent the West, esp. the US from applying the old cold war strategy on China.

Probably the last difference is intellectual change of tide in China and even in the world. Charter 77 may play an important part in the battle of liberal capitalism succeeding over communism. That is all right in 1980s and 90s. But in the new millennium, for China especially, the focus of the public attention is to enlarge public rights domestically and at the same time enhancing national status internationally with a consensus the west is not something Chinese can rely on or even trust.

Hence Liu Xiaobo is either a martyr too late for his time, or maybe too earlier.