Yan and Sautman: “Do supporters of Nobel winner Liu Xiaobo really know what he stands for?”
Do supporters of Nobel winner Liu Xiaobo really know what he stands for?
Barry Sautman
Associate Professor
Division of Social Science
Hong Kong University of Science Technology
Yan Hairong
Anthropologist
Department of Applied Social Sciences
Hong Kong Polytechnic University
In recent weeks, Nobel prizewinner Liu Xiaobo’s politics have been reduced to a story of a heroic individual who upholds human rights and democracy. His views are largely omitted to avoid a discussion about them, resulting in a one-sided debate. Within three weeks, in Hong Kong, for example, more than 500 articles were published about Liu, of which only 10 were critical of the man or peace prize.
In China, before the award, most people neither knew nor cared about Liu, while, according to Andrew Jacobs, writing in the International Herald Tribune, an “official survey of university students taken since the prize was awarded found that 85% said they knew nothing about Mr Liu and Charter ’08.” A Norwegian Sinologist has elicited comments from Chinese people and indicated that younger Chinese still do not care about Liu. Older Chinese intellectuals are interested in discussing the award, but many do not think Liu is an appropriate recipient. Read more…
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