Beijing blocks info on Nobel laureate as he battles for life
beijing — As China’s government faces mounting international pressure to grant imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo his wish to leave the country for treatment of advanced liver cancer, it’s fighting back with a familiar strategy: information control.
From coordinated leaks of hospital surveillance video to a neartotal news blackout for Chineselanguage media and social media, the Chinese government’s sprawling propaganda apparatus has revved up efforts to contain the controversy surrounding its most prominent political dissident.
In an update on Tuesday, the hospital treating Liu said he remains in critical condition and is now on dialysis and organ support.
Liu was convicted in 2009 of inciting subversion for his role in the “Charter 08” movement calling for political reform. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize a year later while in prison.
Chinese media have hardly mentioned repeated calls by the US, the European Union and others for Beijing to let Liu leave on humanitarian grounds. Instead, state media provided extensive coverage this past week of President Xi Jinping’s recent achievements, especially his travels to Russia and Germany, which they portrayed as a massive public relations triumph for China. On Tuesday, state newspapers including the official People’s Daily and the English-language China Daily trumpeted Xi’s call to “unswervingly advance” China’s judicial reform and improve the military. Meanwhile, the daily barrage of questions about Liu fired off by the international press at foreign ministry news briefings has been excised from the ministry’s published transcripts, as if they were never asked. The few mentions of Liu in the state media’s overseas oriented English editions in recent weeks contained denouncements and tough language aimed at foreign audiences.
“It is probably out of politics that some people and forces are requesting Liu to be treated abroad,” the nationalistic Global Times tabloid, published by the People’s Daily, said in an editorial on Tuesday headlined “Liu’s cancer treatment mustn’t be politicised.”
“Today’s China is stronger and more confident, and will not yield to Western pressure,” it said, accusing unidentified overseas forces of “squeezing Liu for their political goals.” Foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang reiterated on Tuesday that China hopes other countries can “respect China’s judicial sovereignty and not use such an individual case to interfere in China’s domestic affairs.” —