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Book shows Chinese laureate's struggles with West
by Staff Writers
Washington (AFP) Feb 4, 2012


Chinese Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo has been hailed as a bold champion of democracy, but a new compilation of his writings shows him also to be deeply introspective and doubtful of the West's model.

Liu has been in forced silence despite winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010. Chinese authorities sentenced him the previous year for subversion for spearheading Charter 08, a major petition for political reform.

In a bid to offer a fuller picture of his thought, a new book -- published in English as "No Enemies, No Hatred" by Harvard University Press -- collects not only Charter 08 but also years of essays and poetry by Liu.

In one defining experience, the now 56-year-old writer explained in 1989 of a visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and how he was "struck with how superficial my thinking was."

"I suddenly realized how insignificant the China issues I have been wrestling with are, if one measures them in terms of true spiritual creativity," Liu wrote in 1989, on the eve of Beijing's crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square.

"My tendency to idealize Western civilization arises from my nationalistic desire to use the West in order to reform China," Liu wrote.

Liu was also critical of the West's views of China. While welcoming those who seek academic or spiritual pursuits in China, Liu said that most Westerners "still maintain deep-rooted feelings of superiority toward non-Western people."

Two decades before he won the Nobel Peace Prize, Liu dismissed Westerners who praised him as a "rebel."

"When I hear such praise, it makes me feel as if I am not really a visitor from China so much as a person who has been stuffed into a leather case and loaded onto an airplane to be displayed, as and where my hosts see fit, as a novel object from a distant land," he wrote.

Yet Liu struck a different tone after the 2008 election of President Barack Obama, saying that Americans' ability to vote into power a member of a historically disadvantaged minority group showed "the greatness of the American system."

In one of his most provocative essays, Liu wrote that China should follow the lessons of Obama's election and appoint the Dalai Lama -- Tibet's exiled spiritual leader who is constantly criticized by Beijing -- as China's president.

Thanks to the Dalai Lama's global prestige, his appointment "could "do a huge amount to improve China's international image" and serve as a model for resolving other disputes such as Taiwan, Liu wrote.

"The dawn of true political reform in China can arrive as soon as Chinese authorities sit down at the negotiating table with the Dalai Lama," Liu wrote.

Perry Link, a scholar of Chinese literature and one of the book's editors, said that Liu was certainly aware that his proposal was far-fetched but that Liu employed the idea to draw attention to China's treatment of minorities.

But Link believed that Liu was writing from the heart and not using a literary device in other writings in which he expressed deep disappointment over his own role in the Tiananmen Square uprising.

Liu returned to China from New York during the protests and encouraged students to flee the military offensive that left hundreds if not thousands dead. Liu received his first prison sentence over his role in the protests.

In a poem in homage to a 17-year-old who died at Tiananmen, Liu wrote: "In the face of your death, living is a crime, and writing this poem for you is an even greater shame."

"I am not worthy to write poetry for you. Your 17 years are more precious than any work of words or hands," Liu wrote.

Liu's works are banned in China. Link, a professor at the University of California-Riverside, said that some Chinese readers who discover Liu's writing might see his approach as "wimpiness" as younger Chinese prefer triumphalism.

But Link said that other Chinese readers might be impressed by the modesty of the leading dissident.

Many Tiananmen Square leaders "have come in for criticism as being too posing and trying to be heroes too much," Link said. "He's doing the exact opposite."

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China hit by more Tibetan self-immolations: reports
Beijing (AFP) Feb 5, 2012 - A Tibetan died and two others were seriously hurt when they set themselves on fire in a remote Chinese village in the latest protests against Beijing's rule, an exile group and US-based broadcaster said.

This brings to at least 19 the number of Tibetans to have set themselves on fire in the past year in protest against what they see as repressive policies in Tibetan-inhabited areas, which were hit by deadly unrest last month.

The London-based group Free Tibet and US-backed Radio Free Asia (RFA) said the three set themselves alight Friday in remote Phuhu village in the southwestern province of Sichuan, which has big populations of ethnic Tibetans.

AFP was unable to independently confirm the information, as phone lines to the area of western Sichuan were the incident reportedly happened appear to have been disabled, with calls being met with a rapid beeping tone.

RFA on Saturday quoted an unnamed source as saying the protesters "had called for freedom for Tibet and the return of the Dalai Lama," the predominantly Buddhist region's exiled spiritual leader.

Both RFA and Free Tibet named the two Tibetans who were seriously injured, adding they were aged around 60 and 30, but the identity of the Tibetan who died was unclear.

Phuhu is part of Seda county and around 145 kilometres (90 miles) away from Seda town -- where rights groups say police fired on Tibetan protesters on January 24, killing at least one person.

The shooting was one of at least three deadly protests in Sichuan over the course of a few days, in which rights groups say at least three were killed and scores of others injured.

China has only acknowledged two of the incidents, and says that in one case, police were forced to fire on violent demonstrators. It has accused "trained separatists" of fometing the unrest.

Calls to local government and police offices and hotels in Seda would not go through on Sunday, and were met with a rapid beeping tone. AFP reporters who tried to get to Seda last month were turned around by police.

One driver who makes regular trips from the provincial capital of Chengdu to Seda said security was still very tight after the unrest.

"Tourists are allowed to go, so long as they carry their ID cards, and armed police check the registrations of every car and drivers' licences," she said Sunday over the phone.

Tibetans have long chafed at China's rule over the vast Tibetan plateau, accusing Beijing of curbing religious freedoms and eroding their culture and language, and these tensions have intensified over the past year.

Beijing, however, insists that Tibetans enjoy religious freedom and have benefited from improved living standards brought on by China's economic expansion.

It blames the Dalai Lama -- a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who fled to India in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule -- for fomenting much of the unrest.



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Bitter exchanges highlight Hong Kong, China divide
Hong Kong (AFP) Feb 5, 2012
A bitter family feud between Hong Kongers and their northern neighbours sparked by mainland China's increasing financial and political clout has led to an awkward debate about the former British colony's identity. The glittering southern financial centre has been governed according to the "one country, two systems" formula since its return to Chinese rule in 1997, but recent incidents have m ... read more


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