BEIJING (AFP) – When China allowed Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo to die in police custody, it made a bet that world governments were more invested in improving trade ties than defending political dissidents..
BEIJING (AFP) – When China allowed Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo to die in police custody, it made a bet that world governments were more invested in improving trade ties than defending political dissidents.
Even as Beijing has stepped up its crackdown on civil society, activists say, its trade partners have largely stepped down from their soap boxes.
Lured by the prospect of doing business with the world’s second largest economy and growing, many countries have toned down their criticism of Beijing’s human rights violations, voicing their concerns behind closed doors if at all.
“The Chinese government figured out 10 to 15 years ago that there was no real price to be paid, ” Human Rights Watch’s China director Sophie Richardson said.
“There was never going to be any greater consequence than public rhetoric.”
Shortly after Liu’s death, Beijing’s propaganda machine was already predicting the world would soon forget the democracy advocate, who lost a battle with liver cancer on Thursday at the age of 61.
“The West has bestowed on Liu a halo that will not linger, ” said an editorial in the state-owned Global Times tabloid.
“In Chinese history, none of China’s heroes were conferred by the West.” Norway got a hard lesson about the dangers of rewarding political activists when China halted salmon imports from the Nordic country after the Oslo-based Nobel Committee awarded the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize to Liu – a veteran of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests – while he was behind bars.
Relations only returned to normal in December. Norway’s prime minister eluded questions about Liu while he was hospitalised and simply expressed “great sadness” after he died.
The “government chose salmon over him”, said Norwegian political journalist Jan Arild Snoen.
