Nobel Peace Prize-winning dissident Liu Xiaobo's has final stage terminal liver cancer, the hospital treating the 61-year-old said Saturday, after doctors from Germany and the United States visited him.
In a statement, the hospital in the northeastern Chinese city of Shenyang said Liu has accumulated a "great amount of abdominal fluid" and described his condition as "serious." A separate statement said Liu is now having eating difficulties.
The hospital identified the two foreign doctors who had seen Liu as Markus Buchler, head of the University of Heidelberg's Department of Surgery, and Joseph Herman of the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Texas.
It said the foreign doctors had consulted with the Chinese medical team treating Liu, and met with his family. The First Hospital of China Medical University's website said they "fully affirmed" the Chinese medical team's treatment programs.
The announcement of their approval comes as China has been facing increasing pressure from other countries and Liu's supporters to allow him to receive the best possible treatment either abroad or at a place of his choosing.
China has maintained that Liu is too sick to go abroad for treatment.
The two foreign doctors differed, saying he can be moved safely but it needs to happen soon.
A literary critic and university lecturer, Liu, was jailed for 11 years in 2009 for "inciting subversion of state power" after he helped write a petition known as "Charter 08" calling for sweeping political reforms and change.
Liu, who was awarded the peace prize in absentia in 2010, was moved from prison to the hospital recently after being diagnosed with the late-stage liver cancer.
