No Enemies, No Hatred

by Liu Xiaobo

  6. Treating speech as crime not only runs counter to the modern trends in world history, but, more deeply, abuses humanism and human rights in a fundamental moral sense. This is true regardless of whether we are speaking of ancient times or modern, of China or the world. In the annals of Chinese imperial history from the third century BCE to the early twentieth CE, wherever punishment of scholars for their words has been noted, those events have come to be viewed as black marks on the records of the regimes that imposed them and as embarrassments to the Chinese nation. The First Emperor of Qin (259–210 BCE) is credited with unifying China, but is also eternally attached to phrase “burning of books and live burials of scholars.” Emperor Wu of the Han (156–87 BCE) did many great things, but they have been overshadowed over the centuries by his cowardly decision to castrate Sima Qian, the Grand Historian. High Qing saw “the splendid era of Kang Xi and Qian Long” (1662–1796 CE), but the harsh censorship of those times has also left a legacy of opprobrium. On the other hand, Emperor Wen of the Han period, in abolishing the “crime of slander,” has been praised ever since for inaugurating the enlightened “era of Wen and Jing [Wen’s son].”

  And so it has been in modern times. One fundamental reason why the Communist Party of China was able to grow stronger in its early years, and eventually to defeat the Guomindang government, was that its calls to “oppose dictatorship and demand freedom” had deep appeal to the public. Before 1949, Communist Party newspapers like New China Daily and Liberation Daily were constantly criticizing the Chiang Kai-shek regime for its repression of free speech and often issued loud appeals on behalf of persecuted voices of conscience. Mao Zedong and other communist leaders expounded upon freedom of speech and other basic human rights at length. After 1949, however, from the Anti-Rightist Campaign of 1957 to the Cultural Revolution of the late 1960s, from Lin Zhao’s death by firing squad (see pp. 134–136) to the slicing of Zhang Zhixin’s throat to prevent her from crying out before she was shot, freedom of speech disappeared while the entire country fell into a tawdry chorus of enforced uniformity. During the reform era following the death of Mao, the ruling party’s tolerance of different political opinion has greatly increased, and the scope for public expression has steadily expanded. Speech crime is much less common than before, but the tradition of using the tool has not died out. From April Fifth [1976, when police using billy clubs drove thousands of protesters from Tiananmen Square—Ed.] to the June Fourth Massacre of 1989, from Democracy Wall to Charter 08, cases of treating words as crimes have remained common. My own case, before you today, is but the latest item in this line.

  Today, in the twenty-first century, awareness of freedom of speech is already well established among the people of our country, and the idea of treating words as crimes is widely condemned. Whether power-holders like it or not, “blocking people’s mouths is harder than blocking a river,” as the proverb says, and no prison walls are high enough to cut off free expression. Suppressing dissident opinion cannot buy legitimacy for a regime, and political prisons will not bring lasting peace or harmony. Problems of the pen can be solved only by the pen; to answer pens with guns only leads to human rights disasters. Only when the practice of treating speech as crime is fundamentally uprooted from our system can citizens across our great land finally be assured that the freedom of speech guaranteed by our constitution will be a living reality for them. This guarantee will require institutional change.

  In sum, the treatment of words as crimes is inconsistent with the provisions on human rights in China’s constitution, violates UN covenants on human rights, and runs counter to the tides of history as well as universal moral principles. I hope that the court, by accepting my plea of “not guilty,” will allow its ruling on this case to stand as a precedent in Chinese legal history, a precedent able not only to meet the human rights standards in the Chinese constitution and in United Nations’ covenants, but also to withstand moral scrutiny and the test of history.

  My thanks to all.

  December 23, 2009

  Original text available at http://blog.boxun.com/hero/liuxb

  Translated by Perry Link

  I HAVE NO ENEMIES

  My Final Statement

  Liu Xiaobo prepared the following statement for presentation at his trial on December 23, 2009. His reading of it was cut off after fourteen minutes when the presiding judge declared that the defendant could use no more time than the prosecutor, who had used only fourteen minutes to present the state’s case against Liu.—Ed.

  JUNE 1989 HAS BEEN THE MAJOR TURNING POINT in my life, which now is just over one half century in length.

  Until June 1989, I had an academic career and it was flourishing. I was part of the class of 1977, the first group of students to enter university after the national entrance examinations were reinstated in the post-Mao era. After college I went on to M.A. and Ph.D. degrees and then was offered a teaching position at my alma mater, Beijing Normal University, where my teaching was well received by students. Beyond the classroom, my books and articles provoked quite a bit of comment, and by the end of the 1980s I had become a “public intellectual.” I received invitations to give talks all around our country as well as invitations to Europe and America as a visiting scholar. Through all of this my essential demands upon myself were only that, both as a person and as a writer, I be honest and responsible, and that I live in dignity.

  At the June 1989 turning point, I had chosen to return to China from the U.S. to join the protest movement, and then was thrown into prison for “the crime of spreading and inciting counterrevolution.” I found myself separate from my beloved lectern and no longer able to publish my writing or give public talks inside China. Merely for expressing different political views and for joining a peaceful democracy movement, a teacher lost his right to teach, a writer lost his right to publish, and a public intellectual could no longer speak openly. Whether we view this as my own fate or as the fate of a China after thirty years of “reform and opening,” it truly is a sad fate.

  Come to think of it, my most dramatic experiences since 1989 have come inside a courtroom. My only two chances to state my views publicly—once in January 1991 and once again today—have come as parts of trials at the Beijing Intermediate Court. The names of the crimes I have faced in the two instances are different, but their substance is the same: they are speech crimes, both.

  Twenty years have passed since 1989, but the aggrieved ghosts of those who were massacred that year are still watching us. It was that massacre that put me on the road to political dissidence, but later, when I got out of prison in 1991 and found myself unable to speak publicly inside China, my only public voice, of necessity, was through the foreign media. This expression led to further consequences: continual police monitoring, a stint under house arrest (May 1995 to January 1996), and a term of “reeducation-through-labor” (October 1996 to October 1999). Today the regime, with its “enemy mentality,” has once again pushed me into the defendant’s dock.

  I wish, however, to underscore something that was in my “June 2nd Hunger-Strike Declaration” of twenty years ago: I have no enemies, and no hatred. None of the police who have watched, arrested, or interrogated me, none of the prosecutors who have indicted me, and none of the judges who will judge me are my enemies. There is no way that I can accept your surveillance, arrests, indictments, or verdicts, but I respect your professions and your persons. This includes Zhang Rongge and Pan Xueqing, the two prosecutors who are bringing the charges against me today. As you interrogated me on December 3, I could sense your respect and sincerity.

  Hatred only eats away at a person’s intelligence and conscience, and an enemy mentality can poison the spirit of an entire people (as the experience of our country during the Mao era clearly shows). It can lead to cruel and lethal internecine combat, can destroy tolerance and human feeling within a society, and can block the progress of a nation toward freedom and democracy. For these reasons I hope that I can rise above my personal fate and
contribute to the progress of our country and to changes in our society. I hope that I can answer the regime’s enmity with utmost benevolence, and can use love to dissipate hate.

  It is well known that “reform and opening” brought development to our country and change to our society. In my view the key to “reform and opening” has been the abandonment of the Mao-era policy of “taking class struggle as fundamental” and replacing class struggle with economic development and more social harmony. Since the abandonment of Mao’s “struggle philosophy” we have seen a weakening of the enemy mentality and of the psychology of hatred. The noxious “wolf’s milk” that seeped into our nature and caused us to be predatory upon others is slowly draining away—and that process, in turn, has created an environment, both inside China and in our foreign relations, in which reform and opening can flourish. There is now some soft turf within which people’s care and sympathy for one another can grow, and where differing interests and values can coexist in peace. This sort of environment stimulates the creativity of our citizens and restores their compassion for others. In sum, reform and opening could never have worked if “class struggle” at home and “anti-imperialism plus anti-revisionism” in foreign relations had continued.

  Our market economy, our newfound cultural variety, and our progress toward rule of law all owe something to the decline of the enemy mentality. Even in political matters, where progress has been the slowest, a weakening of the enemy mentality has turned the ruling regime toward greater tolerance of pluralism in society and considerably less use of force in the persecution of dissidents. The official term for the 1989 protest movement has softened from “rioting” to “political disturbance.” Moreover the regime has gradually come to accept the universality of human rights. By 1998 the Chinese government had made commitments to the world in two major United Nations human rights covenants, the signing of which marked the Chinese government’s acceptance of universal standards of human rights. In 2004 the National People’s Congress amended the Chinese constitution to write into it, for the first time, that “the state respects and guarantees human rights.” This move made human rights now officially part of China’s law. Meanwhile the regime’s announcement of slogans like “Putting people first” and “Creating a harmonious society” showed some progress at the rhetorical level in the Communist Party’s philosophy of government.

  These recent changes at the macro level have been noticeable in my own personal experience.

  Even as I have insisted, throughout the year and a bit more since I lost my freedom, that I am innocent and that the charges against me are unconstitutional, none of the people who have been charged with handling me has been disrespectful, has exceeded any time limits, or has tried to force a confession. I have been held at two different locations and have dealt with four pretrial police interrogators, three prosecutors, and two judges, and all of them have been reasonable and moderate in manner. They have often shown goodwill. On June 23, 2009, police moved me from a location where I had been kept under “residential surveillance” to the Number One Detention Center of the Beijing Public Security Bureau. It was a new facility, and just within my six months there I have been able to observe progress in prison management.

  In 1996 I spent time at the old Number One, at Banbuqiao, and compared to that one, the new one is a huge improvement both in its facilities (its “hardware”) and its management style (its “software”). The more humane policies at the new Number One, which do better to respect the rights and integrity of detainees, trickles down to the words and deeds of correctional staff in daily life. One can also sense new policies in the “soothing broadcasts” that the loudspeakers provide, the “repentance magazines” that carry articles by and for the inmates, and the music that is played before meals, before bed, and upon rising. These management techniques give detainees a certain feeling of dignity and warmth, encourage them to support prison order, and help them to resist bullying by other inmates. They create not only a more humane physical environment but also a much better mental environment for detainees as they prepare to face trial. I have had close and extended contact with Liu Zheng, the warden in charge of my cell, and can say that his respectful care for detainees is visible in every detail of his work, in every word and deed, and that it does create feelings of warmth. Perhaps it was just my good fortune to get to know this sincere, honest, conscientious, and kind correctional officer at Number One.

  If our politics can grow from beliefs and behavior of this kind, we can be confident that political progress will continue. I feel thoroughly optimistic about the prospects for a free China in the future. No force can block the thirst for freedom that lies within human nature, and some day China, too, will be a nation of laws where human rights are paramount. I also hope that progress of this kind might be reflected in the present trial, in a just verdict—a verdict that can stand the test of history—delivered by the officers of this court.

  If one were to ask what my most fortunate experience of the past twenty years has been, I would need to say that it has been the selfless love that I have received from my wife, Liu Xia. She was not allowed to come to court to hear me today, yet I feel a need to address her directly, so will: I feel confident, my dear one, that there cannot possibly be any change in your love for me. For several years now, as I have been in and out of prison, external factors have forced bitterness upon our love, and yet, as I look back, the love still seems boundless. I have been held in tangible prisons, while you have waited for me within the intangible prison of the heart. Your love has been like sunlight that leaps over high walls and shines through iron windows, that caresses every inch of my skin and warms every cell of my body. It has bolstered my inner equanimity while I try to stay clearheaded and high-minded; it has infused with meaning every minute of my stays in prisons. My love for you, on the other hand, is burdened by my feelings of guilt and apology. These are so heavy that they sometimes seem to make me stagger. I am like a stone on a barren plain, whipped by fierce winds and driving rain, so cold that no one dares touch me. Yet my love is rock-solid and sharp. It can pierce any barrier. Even were I ground to powder, still would I use my ashes to embrace you.

  Armed with your love, dear one, I can face the sentence that I am about to receive with peace in my heart, with no regrets for the choices that I have made, and filled with optimism for tomorrow. I look forward to the day when our country will be a land of free expression: a country where the words of each citizen will get equal respect; a country where different values, ideas, beliefs, and political views can compete with one another even as they peacefully coexist; a country where expression of both majority and minority views will be secure, and, in particular, where political views that differ from those of the people in power will be fully respected and protected; a country where all political views will be spread out beneath the sun for citizens to choose among, and every citizen will be able to express views without the slightest of fears; a country where it will be impossible to suffer persecution for expressing a political view. I hope that I will be the last victim in China’s long record of treating words as crimes.

  Free expression is the base of human rights, the root of human nature, and the mother of truth. To kill free speech is to insult human rights, to stifle human nature, and to suppress truth.

  I feel it is my duty as a Chinese citizen to try to realize in practice the right of free expression that is written in our country’s constitution. There has been nothing remotely criminal in anything that I have done, yet I will not complain, even in the face of the charges against me.

  I thank you all.

  December 23, 2009

  Original text available at http://www.liuxiaobo.eu/

  Translated by Perry Link

  THE CRIMINAL VERDICT

  Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court Criminal Judgment No. 3901 (2009)

  PROSECUTING ORGAN: Branch No. 1 of the People’s Procuratorate of Beijing

  DEFENDANT: Liu Xiaobo, male;
53 years of age (born December 28, 1955); Han nationality; born in Changchun city, Jilin Province; Ph.D. education; unemployed; household registry 2-1-2 number 5 Qingchun St., Xigang District, Dalian city, Liaoning Province; current address no. 502, Unit One, Building 10, Bank of China apartments, Seven Sages Village, Haidian District, Beijing City. Convicted in September 1996 of disturbing social order and sent for three years of reeducation-through-labor. Detained for questioning on suspicion of incitement to subvert state power on December 8, 2008. Put under residential surveillance on December 9, and arrested on June 23, 2009. Currently held at the Beijing No. 1 Detention Center.

  DEFENSE COUNSEL: Ding Xikui, lawyer, Mo Shaoping Law Firm, Beijing

  DEFENSE COUNSEL: Shang Baojun, lawyer, Mo Shaoping Law Firm, Beijing

  Branch No. 1 of the People’s Procuratorate of Beijing, in its Criminal Indictment No. 247 (2009), has charged defendant Liu Xiaobo with the crime of inciting subversion of state power and on December 10, 2009, delivered its Indictment to this court for prosecution. This court, in accordance with law, assembled a panel of judges to hear the case in open court. Branch No. 1 of the People’s Procuratorate of Beijing assigned prosecutor Zhang Rongge and deputy prosecutor Pan Xueqing to prosecute the case, and defendant Liu Xiaobo and his counsel, Ding Xikui and Shang Baojun, appeared in court to participate at the trial. The proceedings are complete.