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Activists challenge Beijing on prisoner
in open letter
AGENCIES, BEIJING
About 200 Chinese dissidents and rights advocates called the Nobel Peace Prize
for jailed dissident Liu Xiaobo (劉曉波) a “splendid choice” that should push China
to embrace democratic reform, challenging a clampdown on dissent.
The statement urged authorities to “immediately release the people who have been
illegally detained” after Liu, serving an 11-year jail term for advocating
democratic reform, received the prize and the Chinese Communist Party moved to
squash any efforts to voice support for him and his demands.
“Liu Xiaobo is a splendid choice for the Nobel Peace Prize,” the statement said.
“He has persevered in pursuing the goals of democracy and constitutional
government and has set aside anger even toward those who persecute him.”
The letter, released late on Thursday and posted online, also asks China’s
leaders to respond to the peace prize “with realism and reason.”
It also seizes on a series of recent public remarks by Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶),
who made unusually direct calls for the communist system to evolve. Some of the
remarks have been censored inside China.
“In a recent series of speeches, Premier Wen Jiabao has intimated a strong
desire to promote political reform. We are ready to engage actively in such an
effort,” it said.
Despite Wen’s comments over the past few months, the government has shown little
sign of loosening its tight controls or the rule of the stability-obsessed
Chinese Communist Party.
A group of retired Chinese reformist officials, including a former secretary to
Mao Zedong (毛澤東), earlier this week in an open letter urged the government to
respect freedom of speech.
A closed-door party meeting that began in Beijing yesterday is expected to focus
economic issues rather than specifically political ones.
Xinhua news agency said the meeting, expected to be attended by Chinese
President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤), Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) and other top leaders,
opened “to discuss proposals for the nation’s next five-year development plan”
from next year to 2015.
However, speculation has mounted that political reform could be a hot topic
after Wen — widely viewed as more liberal-minded than party chairman Hu — issued
the unusually strong call for openness.
The five-year plan is expected to contain few surprises by enshrining an ongoing
push to rely more on domestic demand and less on export markets and to broaden
the social safety net to prevent instability in the poor underclass.
Hu called recently for “inclusive growth” that leaves no one behind, the latest
catchphrase indicating official unease over a widening wealth gap as China mints
new millionaires even as hundreds of millions scramble to get by.
Reform-minded forces in the party are thought to be unhappy with an economic
structure seen as increasingly in thrall to powerful state-linked industries —
suppressing competition and worsening inequality, analysts say.
Meanwhile, several signatories of the petition said that it was unlikely to move
the Chinese government. However, the statement shows that Beijing, wary of any
challenges to party control, will continue facing troublesome protests from
supporters of Liu.
“It may not have any impact on them, but we’re signing it for the sake of our
own conscience,” said Li Datong (李大同), a former journalist who signed the
petition. “That is also important, to show that we can stand by what we believe
in.”
Xu Youyu (徐友魚), who helped write the statement, said some of the signatories had
already been warned or questioned by their employers.
“I don’t think we’re expecting any concessions on this now, but in the
long-term, I’m more hopeful that acts like this can make a difference,” Xu said
by telephone.
Another signatory, the Beijing-based rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang (浦志強), said it
was insulting for the government to cast foreign supporters of Liu as lacking
respect for Chinese law.
“In fact, it’s the Communist Party that lacks respect for the law. For them to
turn around and accuse others of that is absurd and shameless,” Pu said.
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