It is remarkable and revealing that China, a country that threatens to upend the balance of power in Asia, is frightened by one man. There is no other explanation for why the government in Beijing, steward of the world's second-largest economy, possessor of one of the world's largest militaries with a formidable nuclear arsenal, would bring the full might of its authority and power down on Liu Xiaobo, a democracy activist and human rights campaigner. Liu died last week, under prison guard, from liver cancer. His death has galvanized international opinion and reminded that world that for all its confidence and muscle flexing, the Chinese Communist Party remains fundamentally weak, threatened by ideas and morally insecure.
Liu was a student of literature and literary theory, who received his Ph.D. from, and taught at, Beijing Normal University. Overseas when the Tiananmen uprising began in 1989, he rushed home to join the protests and played a key role in securing safe passage from the square for many demonstrators before the military crackdown, saving hundreds, perhaps thousands, of lives.
He was arrested shortly after, expelled from Beijing Normal University and, 19 months later, convicted of "counter-revolutionary propaganda and incitement," but spared imprisonment. He continued to call for redress for the victims of Tiananmen, a stance that prompted the government to sentence him in 1996 to three years of "re-education through labor" for "disturbing public order."