U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s statement, released through his spokesperson, on the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize, which is awarded to China’s jailed dissident Liu Xiaobo last Friday, has gone too far in assuaging China’s furious authorities.
The statement offered little, if anything, about the achievement of Liu Xiaobo while devoting most part of this brief statement to sing the praises to the Chinese government for improving human rights. Facing potential pressure from China in his bid for a second term as the UN chief, Mr. Ban, in his well-known non-confrontational style, might have done better to stand firm on UN human rights principles while refraining from offering Chinese authorities praises that contradict the UN human rights expert bodies’ own findings.
Ban’s statement said, "the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo of China is a recognition of the growing international consensus for improving human rights practices and culture around the world." Ban went on to praise China: "Over the past years, China has achieved remarkable economic advances, lifted millions out of poverty, broadened political participation and steadily joined the international mainstream in its adherence to recognized human rights instruments and practices." “Lifting millions out of poverty” maybe, but “broadened political participation?” This claim pays no attention to the mere fact of China’s recent harsh crackdown on Chinese citizens who supported a political reform manifesto, Charter 08, since its publication on December 9, 2008, one day after Liu Xiaobo’s arrest for his role in drafting and organizing support for this expression of democratic aspirations.
Ban said nothing in terms of appealing to China to free Liu Xiaobo, but instead expressed his "sincere hope that any differences on this decision will not detract from advancement of the human rights agenda globally or the high prestige and inspirational power of the Award." This conclusion gives the impression that China was advancing the human rights agenda and it may also hint that awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo might detract the prestige of the award while saying nothing about China’s bullying of Norway by issuing threats on diplomatic and trade relations for months prior to the Nobel Committee’s decision.
As if to counter-balance the UN chief’s statement, some UN human rights experts released a statement on Oct. 11 on Liu Xiaobo’s winning of the Peace Prize. The experts urge China to “respect human rights and release all persons detained for peacefully exercising their rights”. The experts have communicated their concerns over the arbitrary detention of Liu Xiaobo for expressing his democratic aspirations in the past two years.
In contrast to Ban’s statement, President Barack Obama, last year’s winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, in his statement issued last Friday, praised Liu Xiaobo "as an eloquent and courageous spokesman for the advance of universal values through peaceful and non-violent means" and urged China to release Liu Xiaobo as soon as possible.
The reporter Nikola Krastev of Radio Free Europe called Ban’s statement a “congratulatory” message to both Liu and the Chinese authorities who jailed him. Krastev noted that Ban is caught between “a rock and a hard place”: on the one hand, China’s support to Ban as the UN chief, and on the other, the importance of giving this year’s Peace Prize to an imprisoned Chinese dissident.
Colum Lynch, the longtime Washington Post correspondent who reports on all things United Nations for Turtle Bay, shared his view on what might be going on behind such a compromising statement: Ban’s statement took a “diplomatic approach to Beijing”. The UN Secretary General “who will need China's support if he hopes to win a second term as secretary general in 2011.”
China displayed an uncontrolled outrage at the Nobel Committee’s decision since Friday. It has quickly censored media reports and the Internet on related news. Chinese police warned against and rounded up Chinese activists who tried to spread the good news and celebrate, calling for his release.
Mr. Ban is reasonably concerned about a diplomatic show-down with China. Yet, Mr. Ban went one step too far than it is necessary in pursuing his signature “non-confrontational” diplomatic approach to the “China vs. Nobel Committee” face-off.
(Oct. 11, 2010)
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