The Political Meaning of the Crime of “Subverting State Power”

This chapter explores the psychology of resistance that explains why and how some people refuse to back down, acquiesce, accommodate official lies, and reach arrangements with the system. In a largely “neo-totalitarian” system like that of China today, the problem is no longer naked fear such as might be induced by a tyrannical regime. Rather, it is the ability to avoid thinking, “that hard-to-attain confusion” that allows people not even to be aware of their deep-down anxieties and constraints. While some observers believe that the government has won legitimacy in the sense of wide social acceptance of its rule, this analysis leaves no room for such a comforting conclusion. There is no doubt that political change will come eventually — “you can destroy the flowers but you can’t prevent spring”.

Challenging Authoritarianism through Law

This chapter provides a historical background discussion of the legal rights-based weiquan movement in China, traces the tension between the supply and demand of rights, and explains an institutional failure in meeting the increasing demand for rights and the social consequences of that failure. Armed with legal rights, citizens of different social and economic backgrounds have started to assert these and engage in a movement of rightful resistance. Gradually, law has become a rallying point for aggrieved people, and lawyers have become organizers of an emerging social movement. However, the brutal social changes and acute conflicts are often beyond the capacity of legal norms and institutions to grasp. As a result, the legal system has failed to serve as a governing tool for the Party-state and to provide remedies for citizens seeking justice — both are giving up on law and resorting to extralegal and illegal measures to settle the score.

The Threat of Charter 08

Charter 08 is a document that seeks to forge a grand alliance of Chinese liberal elements within the system and outside the system. Its signatories and supporters include known dissidents as well as officials, retired officials, and others from within the system. More significantly, Charter 08 symbolizes yet another alliance between political dissidence and the weiquan movement which is more rooted in Chinese society. The two political forces have been sharply divided since 1989. While the former challenges the CCP directly and calls for a fundamental political change, the latter takes concrete actions in protecting the legal rights of citizens within the framework of the existing political system. Charter 08 provides a common ground for the two forces.

The Politics of Liu Xiaobo's Trial

This chapter explores the macro-level political development in China and the possibilities of liberalization in the context of weiquan and weiwen. The government is resorting to both hard and soft measures to maintain stability and legitimacy. On the one hand, a “scorched earth policy” is used against dissidents who may be perceived to challenge the Chinese Communist Party directly, as demonstrated by the prosecution and heavy punishment of Liu Xiaobo and his comrades-in-arms. On the other, the CCP has taken a reconciliatory approach in dealing with the poor, the liberal elements within the CCP, and the Uighurs in Xinjiang. In general, however, the CCP is retreating to a conservative comfort zone ideologically and institutionally. This suggests that there are only slim chances of further political reform.

Charter 08 and Violent Resistance: The Dark Side of the Chinese Weiquan Movement

This analysis of the weiquan movement focuses on its “dark sides.” Drawing on interviews with lawyers and petitioners, this chapter describes the at-times brutal persecution of rights defenders and discusses increasingly vindictive and violent reactions among some members of the movement. A brief review of attitudes toward violence amongst petitioners, intellectuals, and lawyers shows that beneath an oft-asserted commitment to non-violence in political resistance, there is much doubt and debate within the movement, and that to some violence seems to be the only last answer. While Charter 08 provides little guidance on how to effect the rational, liberal transformation of Chinese society that is so clearly its vision, its protagonist Liu Xiaobo is perhaps best understood through his noble but hard-to-emulate credo of “having no enemies.” In that sense, Charter 08 represents a moral challenge both to the repressive authoritarian state and to the weiquan movement.

Breaking through the Obstacles of Political Isolation and Discrimination

This chapter is an account of how Cui Weiping collated the first reactions of intellectuals and artists to Liu Xiabo's conviction and eleven-year sentence. Spurred into action by her own outrage and sense of injustice, Cui moved to collect these comments in the form of “Tweets” — short, concise summaries of what people told her over the phone — and later posted them online on her blog. Together, they make for a fascinating testimony to the mood of the intellectual elites in that consequential moment.

Is Jail the Only Place Where One Can “Live in Truth”?: Liu Xiaobo's Experience

This chapter introduces Liu Xiaobo as a scholar and activist. It highlights the turning points in Liu's life and puts them in political context. Liu's transformation from a bookish scholar into a person at the forefront of the opposition was triggered by political events. In his case, the experience of the bloodshed on June Fourth had a profound impact on his thinking and priorities in life. He moved from literary critique to political critique, engaging in progressively open criticism of the Chinese Communist Party and advocacy for fundamental political reform. Subsequent developments led to his increasingly overt challenges and his participation in the drafting of Charter 08.

Introduction

On the sixtieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Charter 08, a manifesto asking for the transformation of the People's Republic into a Federal Republic based on separation of powers, a multi-party system, and the rule of law, was sent to the Chairman of the People's Republic of China (PRC). It was signed by 303 persons from all walks of life: intellectuals and ordinary people, communist party members and dissidents. Two days before it was made public, one of its initiators, Liu Xiaobo, was taken away from his home by the police. After more than twelve months in detention, he was sentenced to eleven years in jail for “incitement to subversion of state power.” Two years later, Liu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, a decision the Chinese leaders considered a display of hostility by Western powers. But why had they reacted with such severity to a nonviolent petition signed by such a small proportion of the population?...

Charter 08 and Charta 77: East European Past as China's Future?

This chapter offers a comparison between Charter 08 and Charta 77, the manifesto written by Czechoslovak dissidents, mainly Vàclav Havel and Jan Patocka, to demand the respect of human rights by the Communist Party in Czechoslovakia. The two charters are similar in their content, both invoking international human rights norms and both attempting to function largely within the existing legal framework. Another related similarity between the two lies in the fact that their objectives are not so much to subvert the regimes as to provide a support structure when the regimes fall. However, despite their similarities, both exist in drastically different political and economic contexts. China in 2008 was different from Czechoslovakia in 1977 in terms of the politics, economy, and soft power that the respective communist parties may have, and those differences affect the impact of the respective charters in society.

Democracy, Charter 08, and China's Long Struggle for Dignity

This chapter considers Charter 08 as a manifestation of China's long fight for dignity by generations of dissidents. Indeed, despite the different views between Wei Jingsheng and Liu Xiaobo on Charter 08, they are both part of a common intellectual history and political movement. Speaking one's mind against the government when called for and fighting for a political system that one believes in is, in essence, what a self-respecting person would do in keeping his or her dignity. After all, only human beings are capable of transcending basic animal instincts for the pursuit of higher values. It is that pursuit of higher values that has been motivating dissidents and activists in a hostile environment.