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23 December 2009

United States Criticizes Trial of Chinese Dissident Liu Xiaobo

As co-author of Charter 08, Liu Xiaobo asked the Chinese government for greater political freedoms and human rights.

By Stephen Kaufman
Staff Writer

Washington — The Obama administration said the trial and upcoming sentencing of Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo is “uncharacteristic of a great country” and urged the Chinese government to transform its relationship with its people to keep up with the dynamism that is shaping the 21st century.

P.J. Crowley, the assistant secretary of state for public affairs, told reporters December 23 that Liu’s case is “clearly a political trial that will likely lead to a political conviction.”

Liu, a pro-democracy activist for more than two decades, co-authored the Charter 08 petition in 2008. The document calls for a new Chinese constitution, human rights guarantees, the separation of political powers, direct elections, judicial independence, the freedom to form political parties, free speech and the release and compensation of political prisoners. Liu was charged with subversion and faces a 15-year prison sentence.

Crowley said the aspiration for a more open and participatory form of government “is not a crime” and that Liu’s case was timed so the verdict would likely be released December 25, when the United States and other countries observe the Christmas holiday, “specifically to attract as little attention as possible.”

The assistant secretary criticized the speed of the trial, which reportedly lasted two hours, and the fact that it was not an open proceeding, with Liu’s wife and foreign diplomats barred from the courtroom.

“These are not hallmarks of the kind of government that is likely to be successful in the dynamic world of the 21st century,” Crowley said.

“This is about the future of China, and it is about … what kind of political system it is going to have, what kind of participation individual Chinese citizens are going to have. It’s about the nature of the government in terms of its transparency,” he said. “All of these things are touched in this particular case.”

Crowley acknowledged that China is continuing to evolve and noted the fundamental change in U.S.-Chinese ties over their more than 30 years of normalized relations. “But China will continue to have to evolve, and as China evolves, its political system and its institutions and its fundamental relationship with its people will have to change as well,” he said.

The assistant secretary also noted that the Chinese government had recently “intimidated” Cambodia into forcibly repatriating 20 members of the Uighur community, a minority Muslim population in China’s Xinjiang province, who had been seeking asylum. “Ultimately this is, in our view, not actions that are characteristic of a great power,” Crowley said.

In a December 19 statement, acting State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid said Cambodia’s action appeared to violate its international obligations and that the incident would affect the country’s international standing, as well as its relationship with the United States.

“The United States is deeply concerned about the welfare of these individuals, who had sought protection under international law. We are also deeply disturbed that the Cambodian government decided to forcibly remove the group without the benefit of a credible process for determining refugee status and without appropriate participation by the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees,” Duguid said.

With 20 Uighurs returned to China, Duguid urged the Chinese government to respect its human rights and international law obligations and to “uphold international norms and to ensure transparency, due process and proper treatment of persons in its territory.”