Liu Xiaobo Fully Deserves Nobel Peace Prize

Yesterday's announcement that jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize was electrifying. As Mr. Xiaobo is one of the most prominent campaigners for human rights in China, the Nobel Committee had a fully justified choice in giving him the award, as the world needs to focus on the political liberalization of China now more than ever.

An academic by training, Mr. Xiaobo has been at the forefront of the movement for Chinese democracy since the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. Because of his activism, he has repeatedly be arrested and imprisoned by the Chinese state authorities. In 2008, he was one of the major authors of Charter 08, a manifesto calling for a comprehensive reform of the Chinese governmental system, including freedom of expression and religion, an independent judiciary, and legislative democracy. Not long after Manifesto 08 was issued, Mr. Xiaobo was again arrested and, in fact, is currently in prison.

The rise of China will be one of the most important stories of the 21st Century, and the potential power of the ancient nation, in both economic and military terms, is immense. While China has cast off its communist past as far as its economic development is concerned, the Chinese Communist Party retains its political power with an iron fist, ruthlessly crushing all internal opposition. Indeed, it's not surprising that the Chinese government has denounced the Nobel Committee for awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to one of its citizens, and has even blocked internet searches on the subject.

The entire world should look to Mr. Xiaobo and the Chinese democratic movement he represents as one of the great hopes for the future. For a variety of reasons, the world has turned a deaf ear to the Chinese democracy movement since the Tiananmen Square protests were crushed twenty-one years ago. Mr. Xiaobo receiving the Nobel Peace Prize is a hopeful sign that this is beginning to change. In the coming years, the world needs to focus on the political liberalization of China in the same way that it focused on the end of apartheid in South Africa in the 1980s.

Congratualtions to Mr. Xiaobo for his deserved achievement, and let's hope it's a sign of things to come.