Dr. Liu Xiaobo
Writer and activist
Liu Xiaobo (28 December 1955-13 July 2017), a renowned Chinese literary critic, dissident writer and human rights activist, was sentenced to 11 years’ imprisonment for “inciting subversion of state power” based on his writings criticizing Chinese authorities and his participation in drafting and launching Charter 08. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010.
This profile is part of a cooperation with Independent Chinese PEN Center. It has been written by Secretary-General Yu Zhang and was first published in From Wang Shiwei to Liu Xiaobo - Prisoners of Literary Inquisition Under Communist Rule in China (1947-2010). It’s part of our ongoing effort to support freedom of speech and human rights.
A member of the “Innocent Hearts” poetry group
Liu Xiaobo was born on 28 December 1955 in Changchun City, in China’s northeastern Jilin Province, the third of five brothers. His father, Liu Ling, was a teacher at Northeast Normal University and then a guest lecturer at Choibalsan University in Ulan Bator, the capital of the Mongolian People’s Republic. The family lived in Mongolia for three years before returning to China in 1959.
In 1969, while Liu was still in middle school, China’s universities closed down for the Cultural Revolution, and Liu’s family moved to the Dashizhai People’s Commune in the Horqin Right Front Banner of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Four years later, in 1973, Liu’s family returned to Changchun as some universities resumed classes, and Liu continued his studies at the Attached Middle School of Northeast Normal University. After graduating in July 1974, he went to the countryside as an “educated youth” to be reeducated at Shan’gang People’s Commune in Nong’an County, Jilin Province. In November 1976, two months after Mao’s death and one month after the arrest of Jiang Qing and her Gang of Four brought an end to the Cultural Revolution, Liu was assigned to do plastering for the Changchun City Construction Company.
Liu Xiaobo was admitted as a student of Chinese Literature at Jilin University in 1978, and two years later joined the Innocent Hearts (Chi Zi Xin), a poetry group created by six schoolmates. After graduating with a BA in literature in 1982, he began graduate studies in Chinese Literature at Beijing Normal University. He married his university classmate, Tao Li, who was teaching at the Beijing Language Institute, and their son Liu Tao was born the following year.
A literary dark horse
In April 1984, Liu published his debut article, “On Artistic Intuition”, in The Journal of the University of International Relations, followed by an essay on the ancient philosopher Zhuangzi (Chuang-tzu) in the bimonthly Social Science Front. That same year, he received his MA in literature and became a teacher of Chinese literature at Beijing Normal University. He continued publishing articles and reviews in various academic journals, expressing the rebellious spirit of “New Literature” against the mainstream and its tolerance of humiliation. This “Liu Xiaobo Phenomenon” sent shockwaves through mainland China’s literary circles.
In September 1986, the Institute of Literature at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences held a symposium in which Liu Xiaobo gave an impromptu speech entitled “The New Period Literature Is Facing a Crisis.” Liu referred to China’s mainstream May Fourth Literature and Western Modernist Literature in terms considered shocking at the time, which he applied to Chinese cultural and intellectual circles generally:
The national inertia of Chinese intellectuals is even more deeply entrenched than that of the general public! ... Chinese writers still lack a sense of individuality. At a deeper level, this lack of individuality is a withering of vitality, or a rationalization and dogmatism of vitality. The development of Chinese culture has always restricted sensibility with rationality, and has framed the free development of individual consciousness within moral standards. ...Until we break through tradition, thoroughly negate traditional, classical culture as during the May Fourth era, and cast off the fetters of rationality and dogmatism, we will not be able to shake off this crisis.
Liu’s speech was published by Shenzhen Youth Daily in early October and quickly reprinted by many domestic and overseas presses, earning him the title of “literary dark horse.” That same month, he published another article, “Dialogue with Li Zehou: The Sensate, the Individual, My Choice”, showing his development from literary reviews to ideological and cultural criticism. Liu continued research for his PhD in literary theory while publishing literary, aesthetic and ideological critiques in various publications.
Liu’s first book, The Critique of Choice: Dialogue with Li Zehou, was published in January 1988 and soon became a bestseller for Liu’s comprehensive criticism of Chinese tradition and his blunt challenge to Professor Li Zehou, a rising star exerting major ideological influence on China’s young intellectuals.
In 1988, The Hundred (Bai Jia), a new literary bimonthly, launched a special column, “One Hundred and One”, which published Liu’s article “On Loneliness” and essays by other young scholars discussing the Liu Xiaobo Phenomenon. In June, Liu published his doctoral thesis as his second book, Aesthetics and Human Freedom, defending it before a spontaneous audience of hundreds of college students and obtaining the unanimous approval of a panel of nine prominent literary critics and aestheticians to receive his PhD in literature. He then became a lecturer in the same department.
In August 1988, Liu was invited to serve as a visiting scholar at the University of Oslo, the University of Hawaii and Columbia University in New York City. At the same time, he began publishing groundbreaking political essays with titles such as “The Demon King of Chaos, Mao Zedong” in Hong Kong publications, in particular Emancipation Monthly (later renamed Open Magazine). In an interview entitled “Literary ‘Dark Horse’ Liu Xiaobo”, he was quoted as saying:
Marxism-Leninism in China is not so much a faith as a component of autocracy. Marxism-Leninism is not a faith but rather a tool for rulers to carry out ideological dictatorship.
China’s cultural legacy has been to oppose only foolish monarchs and corrupt officials rather than the autocratic and imperial powers…. In terms of China’s reality, all of these can be attributed to the inability to find a force for negating autocracy from within autocracy itself. Specifically, in politics, the inability to find any force within one-party dictatorship to oppose one-party dictatorship; in economics, the inability to find power from within public ownership and planned economy to reform the economy; in ideology, the inability to find new ideas within dogmatic Marxism; in culture, generally, the inability to find the so-called essence within the traditional Chinese culture. It is only possible to replace one-party dictatorship with the democracy that coexists with multiple parties; to replace public ownership and planned economy with private ownership and market economy; to replace unified ideology with diverse discussion and free thought; and to replace traditional Chinese culture with the modern culture of the world (the West).
It took a century of colonialism to make Hong Kong what it is today. Given China’s size, it would need three centuries of colonialism to become what Hong Kong is today. I even wonder if three centuries would be enough.
In the interview, Liu Xiaobo also sharply criticized several prominent “Thought Leaders” and “Youth Mentors”, namely Liu Binyan, Li Zehou, Jin Guantao and Liu Zaifu, who were well respected among Chinese dissidents, especially young people. His comments attracted considerable concern and counter criticism. In particular, Liu Binyan had won great respect and sympathy both at home and abroad, and Liu Xiaobo’s ridicule, coming two years after Liu Binyan had been expelled from the CPC for his courageous public comments, was considered lacking in compassion and a ploy to gain fame by disparaging prominent individuals.
The Four Gentlemen of Tiananmen Square
When public morning for the death of ousted CPC General Secretary Hu Yaobang developed into the 1989 Democracy Movement, Liu Xiaobo, then a visiting scholar at Columbia University, took part in solidarity activities by overseas Chinese students and scholars.
On 20 April, Hong Kong’s Ming Pao reported, “Hu Ping, Liu Xiaobo, Chen Jun and seven others have jointly published ‘Reform Suggestions’ urging the CPC to reflect on and correct its errors… expressing concern about the current student movement in mainland China”, demanding that the Chinese authorities “reexamine... the 1983 Anti-Spiritual Pollution Campaign and the 1987 Anti-Bourgeois Liberalization Campaign and related issues”, and also amend the constitution by abolishing the “Four Cardinal Principles” and inserting language safeguarding human rights, allowing private publications, ending the conviction of people based on their words, and implementing genuine freedom of speech and of the press.
On 22 April, Liu published his article “Reflections on the Phenomenon of Hu Yaobang’s Death” in the US-based World Journal (Shijie Ribao) in which he suggested:
Abandon the reform model of seeking an enlightened monarch, and try the path of transforming China institutionally… If college students and intellectuals pursuing democracy in mainland China can openly support the liberal faction within the CPC while also openly helping Wei Jingsheng, Beijing Spring and others overseas, this will certainly speed up the democratization process.
On the same day, Liu drafted “An Open Letter to College Students in China” with seven suggestions on how to carry out the student movement, which he distributed in China with the help of other overseas Chinese students and scholars, including Hu Ping, chairman of the overseas Chinese Alliance for Democracy (CAD).
Liu then changed his original plan to return home in 1990, and instead left the United States on April 26, arriving in Beijing the following day. He immediately joined the student movement, passing along thousands of dollars donated by overseas students and scholars to the Student Union of Beijing Normal University.
On May 13, hundreds of Beijing college students began a sit-in and hunger strike at Tiananmen Square, and Liu began helping them with publicity, writing, lectures and fundraising. On June 2, Liu Xiaobo, Zhou Duo, Gao Xin and Taiwanese singer Hou Derchien declared a hunger strike, through which they earned the trust of the protesting students and came to be known as the Four Gentlemen of Tiananmen Square. Liu called on both the government and the students to abandon the ideology of class struggle and to adopt a new political culture of dialogue and compromise. Although unable to prevent the massacre that began outside the square on the night of June 3, Liu and his colleagues successfully negotiated with the commanders of the martial law troops to allow the peaceful withdrawal of thousands of students from the square.
On the same day, Liu Xiaobo heard that martial law troops had begun arresting people, and he went with Hou Derchien to the Diplomatic Residence Compound, where they hid in the apartment of sinologist Zhou Si (Nicholas Jose), the cultural counselor of the Australian Embassy in China.
Zhou Si was about to return to Australia, and he proposed that Liu take refuge in the Australian Embassy and seek political asylum abroad. Liu considered Zhou’s offer, but mindful that few of the other Four Gentlemen would be able to escape, he declined Zhou’s proposal on June 6. He was arrested just outside the embassy gate and then detained in Beijing’s infamous Qincheng Prison.
Afterwards, Liu was accused in official media of being a “black hand” manipulating the student movement to overthrow the government and socialist system. In late June, the government published a critical anthology, Liu Xiaobo, the Man and His Deeds, and Liu was expelled from his university in September. His third book, The Fog of Metaphysics, a comprehensive review on Western philosophy, came out that year, but was immediately banned with his other published works and a fourth book in press, Going Naked Toward God, but many of his works were republished in Taiwan.
A doomsday’s survivor
In September 1989, China Central Television (CCTV) in Beijing broadcasted an interview during which Liu Xiaobo described what he had witnessed while the martial law forces cleared Tiananmen Square and testified that “no one was killed in Tiananmen Square”.
Under pressure from prison administrators and family members, Liu Xiaobo wrote his “statement of repentance” in November that year. The authorities printed off his statement as propaganda material for the political and ideological education of students in China’s universities.
Liu Xiaobo and Tao Li divorced in August 1990, and Tao eventually immigrated with their son to the United States.
In January 1991, the Beijing Intermediate People’s Court found Liu guilty of “counter-revolutionary propaganda and incitement,” but he was exempted from further punishment due to his “major meritorious act” of persuading the students to leave the Tiananmen Square.
After his release, he resumed writing as a freelancer in Beijing and continued his involvement in human rights activities. However, his actions while in prison drew disappointment and criticism from many people both at home and abroad.
In January 1993, Liu Xiaobo was invited to Australia and the U.S. for showings of a documentary film, The Gate of Heavenly Peace. Although many friends advised him to seek political asylum abroad, he returned to China in May. On June 5, he published an essay entitled “We Were Knocked Out by Our ‘Justice’” in Taiwan’s United Daily News, and soon afterward published a confessional and critical memoir, The Monologues of A Doomsday’s Survivor, which caused considerable controversy among dissidents at home and abroad with its negative comments on the 1989 Democracy Movement.
Learning the lessons of blood
On February 20, 1995, Liu Xiaobo joined 11 other intellectuals in issuing an “Anti-corruption Proposal to the Third Plenary Session of the Eighth National People’s Congress,” suggesting five short-term and seven long-term goals for reform. This was followed by another joint statement in May, “Learn the Lessons of Blood and Promote the Process of Democracy and Rule of Law,” but Liu was detained before its formal publication and held under residential surveillance for nine months.
In August 1996, Liu Xiaobo and the well-known dissident Wang Xizhe made plans for a joint statement to the CPC and Taiwan’s KMT on cross-strait relations and other cross-border issues as well as political reform. Two days before the declaration’s planned release on October 10, Liu was detained and sentenced to three years of RTL for “disturbing social order.” While at the Dalian RTL Center, Liu produced writings totaling hundreds of thousands of words.
Following his release on October 7, 1999, Liu resumed his freelance writing, quickly publishing three volumes of political and cultural criticism and poetry in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, respectively: A Belle Gave Me a Knockout Drug (under penname Lao Xia and co-authored with Wang Shuo), Selected Poems of Liu Xiaobo and Liu Xia, and A Nation That Lies to Conscience.
During this period, Liu Xiaobo’s image was restored. In 1999, Liu Binyan, serving as a visiting scholar at the Asia-Pacific Center of Stockholm University in Sweden, commended the constant issuing of joint letters by Chinese intellectuals. Discussion of influential figures particularly cited Liu Xiaobo’s development since 1995, and he was expected to make even greater progress after standing up to RTL.
Golden Years of the Independent Chinese PEN Center
In July 2001, Liu Xiaobo helped found the Independent Chinese PEN Center (ICPC), known in Chinese as China Independent Writers PEN (Zhongguo Duli Zuojia Bihui). PEN International’s archives shows that on July 23, its headquarter received a list of 31 founding members of ICPC. Among them, Liu Xiaobo and his wife Liu Xia, a poet, were only two independent writers residing in mainland China, thus distinguishing ICPC from the other Chinese PEN centers existing at the time. Among them, the longstanding Taipei Chinese PEN Center was composed of writers living in Taiwan; the Hong Kong Chinese-speaking PEN Center was established in the 1950s as a group of writers in Hong Kong; China PEN Center, Shanghai Chinese PEN Center and Guangzhou Chinese PEN Center were all founded in the 1980s as subordinate groups to the official China Writers Association; and Chinese Writers Abroad PEN Center (formerly known as Chinese Exiled Writers PEN Center) consisted of overseas and exiled Chinese writers. Without the participation of Liu Xiaobo and Liu Xia at its founding, ICPC would have had difficulty justifying its existence, as the others members could have joined an existing PEN center rather than establishing a new one.
Due to its membership distribution, ICPC’s earliest efforts were limited to the United States. In December 2002, two prominent U.S.-based exiles, Liu Binyan and Zheng Yi, were elected chairman and vice-chairman, respectively. The executive director, Huang Beiling, and other staff members all resided in the U.S. By the time ICPC held its first Membership Assembly through the Internet in November 2003, its membership had grown to 67, with about one-third residing in mainland China, nearly half of them recommended by Liu Xiaobo, including the well-known dissident writers Liao Yiwu and Yu Jie. The Membership Assembly adopted the ICPC Charter and change ICPC’s Chinese name to Independent Chinese Writers PEN (Duli Zhongwen Zuojia Bihui) in acknowledgement that most of the members were not in China and some were not even Chinese citizens. At the same time, the Membership Assembly elected a president and board of directors. Supported by Liu Binyan, Zheng Yi and most of the founding members, Liu Xiaobo was elected president with 44 out of 47 votes. Among the seven board members, Liu Xiaobo and two others were in China, while the other four, including vice-president Cai Chu and Chen Maiping, were overseas.
After taking up the post of presidency, Liu Xiaobo recommended a large number of mainland-based writers to join ICPC and actively supported the establishment in December of its Writers in Prison Committee (WiPC), of which I was appointed coordinator in January 2004. ICPC’s Writers in Prison Committee was a subordinate branch of PEN International’s most influential committee. Its focus on long-neglected writers in prison and the relevant issues of freedom of expression and literary inquisition quickly made the WiPC a vital institution. As ICPC entered the rapidly developing Internet Era and the international community of PEN International, it grew from a small circle of underground and exiled writers mainly focusing on their past accomplishments into the most influential member-based NGO supporting independent writers and prisoners of writing in China.
On October 30, 2004, Liu Xiaobo chaired ICPC’s ceremony of the second Freedom to Write Award, held at a restaurant in suburban Beijing. The 62 attendees included the awardee, Ms. Zhang Yihe, and other prominent figures. It was the first time that Liu Xiaobo had made a speech at a gathering of more than 30 people since his arrest in 1989 and also the largest number of participants at an ICPC gathering in mainland China.
In May 2005, I joined Kjell Holm, the International Secretary of Swedish PEN, Nicholas Jose, the former President of Sydney PEN, and Chip Rolley, the Chair of the WiPC of Sydney PEN in Beijing for a dinner party on May 13 with Liu Xiaobo and his wife Liu Xia, ICPC director Yu Jie and his wife Liu Min, deputy secretary-general Wang Yi, chief editor Yu Shicun and former prisoner Li Baiguang, who was out on bail. I had another opportunity the next day to have dinner with Liu Xiaobo, as well as Holm and a writer from the China Writers’ Association, never imagining that I would never meet Liu Xiaobo again.
When Liu Xiaobo presided over the Second ICPC Membership Assembly over the Internet in October, membership had grown to 140, with more than half of the members residing in mainland China, including many influential Internet writers, reflecting the shift of ICPC’s main focus to China. In accordance with the PEN International’s recent reforms and the development of ICPC, the Membership Assembly amended its Charter and changed its Chinese name to enlarge the scope of its membership to those who write, edit, translate, research and publish literary works in Chinese. The shift in focus toward mainland China was further reflected in the election of five mainland residents to the nine-member board of directors, including the reelected president, Liu Xiaobo, and vice-president Yu Jie. Then Liu Xiaobo appointed me as the secretary-general with the board’s approval.
On January 2, 2006, Liu Xiaobo held ICPC’s third Freedom to Write Award and its first Lin Zhao Memorial Award in Beijing, with all five mainland board members attending the event. Despite intensified efforts by the authorities to suppress such activities, Liu managed to get permission to organize a private dinner party for the New Year, with slightly fewer participants than the year before. From then on, as the authorities began cracking down in preparation for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the domestic situation became increasingly tense, and pressure on Liu also grew to the point that even private gatherings of this type became impossible. ICPC’s next award ceremony had to be delayed and held in Hong Kong in February 2007.
In October 2006, Liu Xiaobo was invited to become chief editor of the U.S.-based website Democratic China.
When Liu Xiaobo presided over the Third ICPC Membership Assembly on the Internet in October 2007, the number of members had grown to 220, nearly quadruple the number four years before. Although the proportion of mainland members was still a little over one half, the proportion of well-known writers, academics, journalists and dissidents among the new members had greatly increased, mostly on Liu’s recommendation. Liu did not run for president again, but continued to serve as a board member for the next two years. In particular, he devoted much more time to supporting and participating in the WiPC’s rescue missions, including contact with the families of imprisoned ICPC members.
Harsh sentence for initiating Charter 08
In 2008, Liu Xiaobo took part in drafting and launching Charter 08, a manifesto calling for political reform, human rights protection and gradual implementation of a constitutional democracy in China, in the style of Czechoslovakia’s Charter 77. Charter 08 was to be released on the 60th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on December 10.
On December 8, two days before the scheduled publication of Charter 08, Liu Xiaobo was summoned for questioning by the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau, and his home was searched. The next day, Charter 08, initially signed by 303 Chinese citizens, was issued one day earlier. Up to now, it has gained more than 13,000 signatures.
Liu Xiaobo was held in an undisclosed location until formally arrested on suspicion of inciting subversion of state power on June 23, 2009.
Liu was put on trial at the Beijing Municipal First Intermediate People’s Court on December 23, 2009, represented by lawyers Ding Xikui and Shang Baojun. About 20 people were allowed to attend the hearing, including Liu Xiaobo’s younger brother and brother-in-law, while his wife Liu Xia was forcibly taken as a prosecution witness and was not allowed to enter the courtroom. Many individuals barred from attending the hearing waited outside the court, including media reporters and a dozen foreign diplomats from the embassies of the United States, Germany and Australia among others. Liu pleaded not guilty, but was allowed to speak for only 15 minutes during the two-hour trial, and the judge interrupted him before he could finish reading out his two prepared statements, “My Self-defense” and “I Have No Enemies: My Final Statement”. On December 25, the court held its final hearing to deliver its verdict, based on a total of 224 words extracted from six of the thousands of articles Liu had published over the years, along with Charter 08, produced as evidence of “rumors, defamation” and “seditious remarks.” In its verdict, the court ruled: “The defendant Liu Xiaobo is guilty of the crime of inciting subversion of state power and sentenced to eleven years’ imprisonment and two years’ additional deprivation of political rights”. Liu’s appeal was dismissed by the Beijing Municipal High People’s Court in February 2010, and in May 2010 Liu was transferred to Jinzhou Prison in Liaoning Province to serve his sentence.
Nobel Peace Prize laureate: “I have no enemies”
Ever since 1989, human rights organizations worldwide had expressed concern and solidarity with Liu Xiaobo, and he had won many international awards. Starting in 2009, a number of groups and individuals, including Nobel laureates and national parliaments, joined in nominating Liu for the Nobel Peace Prize. On October 8, 2010, the Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Thorbjørn Jagland, announced that the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Liu Xiaobo “for his long and nonviolent struggle for fundamental human rights in China”.
Liu Xiaobo was unable to attend the Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony in Oslo on December 10, and the Chinese government also prevented his wife, Liu Xia, and others from leaving China to attend. On that day, Liu Xiaobo was represented by an empty chair on the podium while the Norwegian actress Liv Ullmann read out an English translation of his essay “I Have No Enemies: My Final Statement”. In addition, a commemoration exhibition of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate was also opened to the public, a concert celebrating Liu Xiaobo was held at the following night, and a Nobel Foundation documentary of Liu Xiaobo was issued, all based on the theme “I have no enemies!”
In early June 2017, Liu Xiaobo was granted medical parole after being diagnosed with terminal liver cancer in prison. He was transferred to the First Affiliated Hospital of China Medical University in Shenyang for medical treatment under isolation from the outside world. At 17:35 on July 13, the hospital announced that Liu Xiaobo’s condition had deteriorated and that he had died of multiple organ failure at the age of 61. On the morning of July 15, 2017, Liu’s remains were cremated, and his ashes were buried at sea at noon on the same day.
In addition to publication in Hong Kong and Taiwan, Liu Xiaobo’s works have been translated into English and other foreign languages for publication abroad.
Bibliography
1. Liu Xiaobo, “Dialogue with Li Zehou: The Sensate, the Individual, My Choice”, 1986.
2. Liu Xiaobo, “Crisis! The Crisis Facing New Literature”, 1986.
3. Jin Zhong, “Literary ‘Dark Horse’ Liu Xiaobo”, 1988.
4. Wen Ping, “From Nationalistic Nihilism to Treason: A Critique of Liu Xiaobo’s Bourgeois Liberalist Fallacies”, 1989.
5. Zheng Wang, Ji Kuai, Liu Xiaobo, the Man and His Deeds, 1989.
6. State Education Commission Ideological and Political Work Office, Fifty-six Hair-raising Days: A Daily Record of the Events from April 15 to June 9, 1989, 1989.
7. Bao Zunxin et al., “Anti-corruption Proposal”, 1995.
8. Fan Xing, “Cultural Whirlpoolat the End of the Century”, 1996.
9. Liu Xiaobo, “The File of Liu Xiaobo”, 2000.
10. Citizens’ Group, “Charter 08”, 2008.
11. Qian Wei, “Human Rights Organizations Put Liu Xiaobo Forward for the Nobel Peace Prize”, 2009.
12. Beijing Municipal First Intermediate People’s Court, “Verdict Against Liu Xiaobo”, 2009.
13. Hu Ping, “My Association with Liu Xiaobo (Part 1)”, 2010.
14. Liu Xiaobo, The Collected Works of Liu Xiaobo, 2010.
15. Wu Renhua, Chronicle of the 1989 Tiananmen Incident, 2011.
16. Yu Jie, I’m Innocence: The Story of Liu Xiaobo, 2012.
17. Sing Tao Daily, “Liu Xiaobo Dies of Illness at the Age of 61; His Remains Are Reportedly to Bury in Sea After Cremation”, 2017.
Meet Liu Xiaobo here:
