Judging by her apartment on the eve of her departure from Beijing to Germany, Liu Xia (劉霞) seemed completely unaware of her impending freedom — or perhaps unwilling to believe it.
Agence France-Presse on Monday evaded tight security to gain rare access to the fifth-floor duplex apartment where the poet has been held under de facto house arrest since her dissident husband, Liu Xiaobo (劉曉波), won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010.
No bags or boxes had been packed in her wood-paneled, booklined home. Instead, in the center of her living room stood a large, unfinished white canvas, a square half-filled with cramped black numbers, painted obsessively into orderly rows: “20170713, 20170713.”
Photo: AP
“It’s the date of Liu Xiaobo’s death,” she said.
On an opposite wall, beneath prominent photographs of her husband in happier times, she had propped up another of her paintings — a dark gray expanse bisected by large black blotches.
“It’s the closing of a tomb,” she said of the abstract oeuvre.
Liu Xia spoke in barely audible whispers, directly up against the reporter’s ear.
“They can hear everything that goes on in this apartment,” she said.
The 57-year-old gave no indication she knew anything of her imminent trip and declined to give a formal interview, citing fears for the safety of her younger brother.
A friend who asked not to be named on Tuesday told reporters that she had been issued a passport last week. Chinese authorities have maintained that Liu Xia was free, but imposed severe restrictions on her movement and placed her under constant surveillance.
Sparse light entered her apartment through the kitchen window, which faces a park encircled by barbed wire-topped fences, but the rest of the apartment’s curtains were tightly drawn.
On one shuttered window pane, Liu Xia had written the Chinese characters for “freedom, freedom, freedom” in a lop-sided scrawl.
Liu Xia had been battling suicidal thoughts and became hooked on medication to fight depression and hallucinations, her Berlin-based friend Liao Yiwu (廖亦武) said.
“I think it would take her at least a year to return to a normal, healthy state,” he said.
Liu Xia was dressed in multiple layers and a long-sleeved blue gown, even though the air-conditioning in her house was not turned on against the sticky summer humidity. Even through the thick fabric, her arms felt thin to the bone.
Her friend, Ye Du (野渡), said that she had been permitted to leave the apartment for a few days each month to see her brother, with a police escort. Authorities had allowed her a landline, but no mobile phone, which might have provided access to encrypted communication apps, he said.
Liu Xia said no friends were allowed into her home. She appeared surprised and unnerved to see foreign reporters, but also immediately warm and welcoming, communicating much in silence via laughs and tight hand squeezes.
She declined any photographs being taken inside the apartment. Liao said that Liu Xia had her hopes of leaving raised and dashed repeatedly since her husband’s passing.
“She’s packed up her things so many times, but the government has always acted unscrupulously. There have been endless excuses,” Liao said.
On Monday, Liu Xia’s apartment compound was serene, a normal Beijing scene — except for the five or more plainclothes men standing in constant watch in front of her building, one sporting an earpiece.
Retirees strolled through the leafy lanes with their teddy bear poodles, while a pair of women carried home shopping bags full of lychees and spring onions, toddlers in tow.
In the narrow entry to Liu Xia’s building, two dirty makeshift beds had been set up for those tasked to watch her around the clock. An elderly neighbor who had known Liu Xia and her parents for nearly two decades said he was not bothered by the security.
They helped to maintain “a quiet social order” and prevent hordes of journalists from rushing in, as had happened in the past, he said, adding that he sometimes encountered Liu while shopping or walking in the park, but had no real sympathy for her situation.
“Sure, a writer is just a writer, but you can’t interfere in your country’s interests. Every country has its rules and if you break them you have to pay up,” he said.
However, Liu Xia has been charged with no crime and told Liao in an emotional call that her only possible offense is “loving Liu Xiaobo.”
“In the long run, what political threat can she pose?” Liao asked. “She has been through so much, and been by Xiaobo’s side for so many years. No one has the right to ask her to do anything.”
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not