China Change » Political Transition

A Record of 709

Xie Yanyi, October 15, 2017 Xie Yanyi (谢燕益) is one of the twenty or so 709 detainees during China’s sweeping, still ongoing crackdown on human rights lawyers and activists. He was held incommunicado from, July 12, 2015 to January 18, 2017, in Tianjin. As a human rights lawyers, Xie Yanyi’s career spans from 2003 to the time when [...] Keep reading »

From Dr Wang Bingzhang, a Special Prayer on the 15th Anniversary of His Abduction by the Chinese Government

Yaxue Cao, September 18, 2017 Last Friday, Dr. Wang Bingzhang’s family – his wife, children and siblings in Canada and the U. S. – received a letter from him in Shaoguan Prison (韶关监狱), Guangdong. He shared “a special prayer” with them on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of his kidnapping: My loved ones, June 27, 2017 is [...] Keep reading »

A Comprehensive Bibliography of Liu Xiaobo’s Writings

Hermann Aubié, September 5, 2017 During the eight and a half years that Liu Xiaobo spent in Jinzhou prison, only intermittent attention to both his fate and Liu Xia’s detention kept him from becoming gradually invisible, despite being the world’s only imprisoned Peace Nobel laureate. Now that Liu Xiaobo has passed away [...] Keep reading »

From Brittany, in Memory of Liu Xiaobo’s Spirit and Voice of Conscience

Hermann Aubié, August 9, 2017 Dear Xiaobo, About three weeks ago, shortly after the world learned about your terminal liver cancer diagnosis of late May 2017, you died aged 61 in the Northeast region of China where you were born. As the poet Tang Danhong wrote, you departed as “an innocent prisoner into the eternal light” [...] Keep reading »

Remembering Liu Xiaobo — And What the U. S. Can Do

By Yang Jianli, July 22, 2017 “The U.S. should implement targeted sanctions against those personally responsible for Liu Xiaobo’s death. The U.S. can use the Global Magnitsky Act as a tool to sanction them—banning them from traveling in the U.S. and freezing their assets in this country—and also encourage its allies to do the same. [...] Keep reading »

Liu Xiaobo: Walking the Path of Kang Youwei, Spilling His Blood Like Tan Sitong

Wang Dan, July 20, 2017 “Liu Xiaobo’s death also lays bare a reality we sometimes are reluctant to acknowledge: even the most moderate position, so long as it is premised on constitutional democracy, cannot be accepted by the Chinese Communist Party.” When I heard that Liu Xiaobo had died, I quickly posted the news on Fac [...] Keep reading »

As Liu Xiaobo Dies in Isolation, It’s Time to Abandon ‘Quiet Diplomacy’

By Chang Ping, July 18, 2017 On July 7, the German professor Markus W Büchler, Chairman of the Department of Surgery, University of Heidelberg, traveled to Shenyang to take part in diagnosing the condition of Liu Xiaobo. Media reports noted that it was the first time in almost a decade that Liu, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, had seen [...] Keep reading »

The Path Forward in the Wake of Liu Xiaobo’s Passing

Yaxue Cao, July 16, 2017 It was heartbreaking and depressing recently to watch the community of Chinese activists and dissidents, especially friends of Liu Xiaobo, congregating on WhatsApp and frantically thinking of ways to save him. The appeals and statements, and the calls for signatures from a dozen or so sources, sounded l [...] Keep reading »

Independent Federation of Chinese Students and Scholars: A Statement on the Death of Mr. Liu Xiaobo

July 15, 2017 “This was a long and public slaughter.” Today, Xiaobo is gone. Xiaobo, our teacher, our classmate, is gone. The courageous man who protected others’ lives at the scene of the Tiananmen massacre has perished, and the beautiful soul behind Charter 08 has passed away. Xiaobo was a writer, a scholar, a sage, but ev [...] Keep reading »