Leading Chinese political dissident Liu Xiaobo has been sentenced to 11 years in jail for "subversion" or some other bullsh*t.
He's in trouble for participating in the creation of the Charter 08 Manifesto, which states:
“This year is the 100th year of China's Constitution, the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the 30th anniversary of the birth of the Democracy Wall, and the 10th year since China signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. After experiencing a prolonged period of human rights disasters and a tortuous struggle and resistance, the awakening Chinese citizens are increasingly and more clearly recognizing that freedom, equality, and human rights are universal common values shared by all humankind, and that democracy, a republic, and constitutionalism constitute the basic structural framework of modern governance.
A "modernization" bereft of these universal values and this basic political framework is a disastrous process that deprives humans of their rights, corrodes human nature, and destroys human dignity. Where will China head in the 21st century? Continue a "modernization" under this kind of authoritarian rule? Or recognize universal values, assimilate into the mainstream civilization, and build a democratic political system? This is a major decision that cannot be avoided."
The United States and other countries have protested, but with China feeling pretty flush right now, and holding gazillions of dollars of U.S. debt, our ability to exert pressure is not very much, and the Chinese know it.
To those who believe that economic liberalization inevitably leads to political liberalization, by all accounts, China under Hu Jintao is only increasing its political repression.
I used to be a teaching assistant in poli-sci, and my very wise professor said, "What Gorbachev proved is that you can't have glasnost without perestroika, but it's not clear you can't have perestroika without glasnost."
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