A group of so-called “princelings,” children of China’s political elite, has quietly urged the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to release jailed Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo (劉曉波) on parole to improve the country’s international image, two sources said.
Liu’s release is not high on the agenda of the CCP, which is trying to push through painful economic, judicial and military reforms amid the most extensive crackdown on corruption in more than six decades, the sources with ties to the leadership said, requesting anonymity.
However, the back-channel push for Liu’s parole shows that a debate is taking place among leaders about damage to China’s reputation caused by his jailing. It also suggests the ruling elite are not monolithic when it comes to views on dissent.
Liu, 58, a veteran dissident involved in the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests crushed by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), was jailed for 11 years in 2009 on subversion charges for organizing a petition urging an end to one-party rule. He won the Nobel Peace Prize the following year.
“For many princelings, the pros of freeing Liu Xiaobo outweigh the cons,” one of the sources said. “Liu Xiaobo will definitely be freed early. The question is when.”
He is eligible for parole after serving half his term.
The sources declined to say how big the group of princelings was, but said most were second or third-generation, born in the 1960s or 1970s, and some were close to Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平).
“The biggest worry is hostile forces using Liu Xiaobo once he is freed,” the second source told Reuters.
Asked how the message was relayed to the leadership, the source said: “We have our channels ... the topic has come up many times during our gatherings.”
The sources declined to identify the princelings or say if they had written or spoken to Xi, or went through his aides or family members.
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Justice and State Council Information Office did not respond to faxed requests for comment.
Liu’s wife, Liu Xia (劉霞), has been put under effective house arrest since shortly after her husband won the Nobel prize, ostensibly to prevent her from talking to the media, and could not be reached.
Liu Xia was hospitalized in February after police refused to let her seek medical help abroad.
Liu Xiaobo is considered a moderate dissident, but the CCP is obsessed by anyone or anything it perceives as a threat to social stability.
INSECURE
Critics say Chinese leaders are insecure about what they feel are Western efforts to undermine one-party rule by pushing democratization.
Xi, despite being the son of a reform-minded former vice premier, has shown no sign of wanting to loosen the political system. He said in Belgium last month that China had experimented with multiparty democracy and that it did not work.
China’s human rights record has been a thorn in its side since the PLA crackdown on student-led demonstrations for democracy that centered on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989, which attracts endless opprobrium abroad.
China’s government has stepped up pressure on the rights community ahead of the 25th anniversary of the crackdown, detaining several leading dissidents and activists, including lawyer Pu Zhiqiang (蒲志強) and journalist Gao Yu (高瑜).
Xi’s administration has also clamped down on Internet critics and tightened curbs on journalists in what rights groups call China’s worst suppression of free expression in recent years.
Yet the purge of retired domestic head of security Zhou Yongkang (周永康) could be conducive to Liu’s release, the sources said.
Zhou is under virtual house arrest and under investigation for corruption. He had little sympathy for dissidents and during his five-year watch, government spending on domestic security eclipsed the defense budget.
“Zhou Yongkang had recommended imprisoning Liu Xiaobo,” the second source said, adding that this could be an opportunity to undo Zhou’s deeds.
“But even if Liu Xiaobo is freed, the government will not [politically] rehabilitate June 4 soon,” the source said, referring to the Tiananmen crackdown.
Liu’s lawyer, Mo Shaoping (莫少平), said that any decision on releasing Liu would be political, not legal.
Maya Wang, Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch, said there have been sustained efforts from within China to get Liu released, but that she was not optimistic.
“According to Chinese law, he would have to admit guilt first. Since he didn’t, the likelihood of that happening is rather low,” Wang said.
CHANGES
Despite Beijing’s crackdown on dissent, there have been nuanced changes to China’s policy toward the 1989 protests.
Taiwanese songwriter Hou Dejian (侯德健), who defected to China in 1983 and was deported seven years later for staging a hunger strike, with Liu and two others, in support of student protesters on the eve of the Tiananmen crackdown, set foot in China in 2006 for the first time in 16 years.
Hou’s return and the recent release from detention of two outspoken bloggers — Xue Manzi (薛蠻子) and Wang Gongquan (王功權) — have raised hopes the government may show leniency toward Liu.
In another sign of possible tolerance, Xi approved publication in China last year of the Chinese version of Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平) and the Transformation of China by Harvard academic Ezra Vogel, multiple sources said.
The book was the first unofficial account of the crackdown by a foreign academic to be published in China.
In yet another sign, “democracy movement” was dropped last year from a government blacklist of “hostile forces,” three independent sources said.
However, the security apparatus continues to put dissidents and the bereaved families of victims under house arrest ahead of politically sensitive dates.
In a rare move, Chen Ziming (陳子明), who was sentenced to 13 years in prison as one of two “black hands” behind the 1989 protests, was allowed to go to the US in January for medical treatment and to receive a human rights award.
The 1989 protests had initially been labeled “counter-revolutionary,” or subversive, but have since been watered down to a “political disturbance.”
Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard, Maxim Duncan and Sui-Lee Wee
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