The Great Wall

On December 10th, it was international Human Rights Day 2010. Ordinarily, the coincidence of the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony with such an observation would be timely, but this year it simply served to underscore one of the more deeply troubling current geopolitical realities: China is big and strong, and it doesn’t like the things we like. Mr. Liu Xiaobo has been given a Nobel Peace Prize, one of an admirable few to ever be awarded the prize while in prison for the very actions that led to his recognition. And of course, China has been bullying, politicking, and refusing access to Mr. Liu Xiaobo, ultimately boycotting the ceremony in Norway and successfully encouraging others (Afghanistan, China, Colombia, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia, Venezuela and Vietnam) to do the same.

Of course, China’s position on human rights is nothing terribly new. The Party has always been accused of human rights violations, of having fuller prisons and more executions than most other countries (and those are just reported figures mind you), and of oppressing and systematically undermining the Tibetan and Uighur minorities. Given that this reaction from the Party was perhaps predictable, it is worth wondering how much the Nobel Prize Committee was itself politicking. But more interesting is the way that China has managed on this topic, as on so many, to garner the support it has. The list of non-delegates above is not a new one, though there may be a few surprise entrants. In some ways, what we’re looking at here is a group of nations who rally behind the Great Wall of Sovereignty, who tend to agree with China’s oft-stated position that the international community does not have a right to interfere with the administration of justice (or really, the administration of just about anything) inside a nation’s borders. But while the rhetoric is transparent, the reality is there is a very powerful nation that is willing not only to simply make up its own rules but is also not afraid to win allies through bold strategic linkages (and award ceremonies) and outright blackmail.

The trouble with China is that a single stand like this appears childish and sloppy to the Western press, or at least to this humble blogger, is all a part of the possible-to-predict and yet still unpredictable pattern of Chinese diplomacy and global policy. We know the kinds of violations that are going on in China, and to me at least, the cries of ‘sovereignty’ seem like a feeble cover-up for the fact that the Party must routinely use oppressive measures and scapegoating to deal with extremely serious internal social and political problems. Yet, China is still big, it is still a major player in regional and global politics, and it can still get a handful of nations (many of which are resource rich and strategically located) to go along with its childish international gestures. The Nobel Prize is one of those things like the Olympics – it is supposed to cross national boundaries and alliances and represent a world that universally recognizes the merits and peace and scholarship. Even if the Committee ‘started it’ the fact that China could use something as innocuous as the Nobel Prize to stage an anti-Western temper tantrum (because honestly, isn’t everything about sovereignty Anti-Western and everything about human rights Western?) is startling and points to deeper rifts. As China’s symbolic stands come even more in line with its questionable practices, the international community is under more pressure than ever to shake off the complicity with which it usually treats China’s willingness to flaunt human rights. Symbols are and have always been power political capital, and China’s boycott of the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, and refusal to allow Liu Xiaobo the chance to accept his award on International Human Rights Day should be viewed not as merely a diplomacy snub but a serious issue for the world community. Bullying and complicity are two sides of the same coin. Human beings don’t stop at certain national borders, and human rights cannot be allowed to either.