Friedman Also Ignores Liu Xiaobo

In his New York Times op-ed of today's date, "Is China an Enron? (Part 2)", Thomas Friedman concludes:

"So there you have it: Command China, which wants to censor Google, is working against Network China, which thrives on Google. For now, it looks as if Command China will have its way. If that turns out to be the case, then I’d like to short the Communist Party."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/20/opinion/20friedman.html?hp

However, the abomination of Communist China extends far beyond the censorship of Google. My online response to Friedman, if The Times agrees to post it:

"Short" the Chinese Communist Party? We are not talking about shares. Rather, we are talking about human lives that are being trampled, and in any given year, Communist China executes more persons than all of the rest of the world combined.

The repression of freedom of expression in China? This is a basic human right to which all people are entitled and has nothing to do with economics. See the preamble of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948 by the UN, of which Communist China is a member:

"Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people".

Your op-ed - like that of Roger Cohen yesterday - does not mention Liu Xiaobo, a literary critic, writer, visiting scholar at New York's Columbia University, and political activist based in Beijing, who was recently sentenced to 11 years in prison and two years' deprivation of political rights for "inciting subversion of state power."

In "short", drop the stock market analogy. This is a matter of basic human rights.

In keeping with his policy of appeasing Communist China and the world's other leading tyrannies, Obama has ignored the matter of Liu Xiaobo and turned a cold shoulder to the Dalai Lama. But why no mention by Friedman of Liu in his op-ed of today's date or by Cohen in his op-ed yesterday? Do Friedman and Cohen sincerely believe that the imprisonment of Liu, also a journalist, had no place in their respective op-eds?

It is worth highlighting the interaction I had yesterday with a reader who responded to my prior blog entry, "The New York Times' Roger Cohen: A Chinese Laundry Whitewash". The reader's comment:

Jeff, your op-ed does not mention the fact Liu Xiaobo has received hundreds of thousands of US government funding via the NED in the past five years. Please see the NED's China grants for Independent Chinese Pen Center and Minzhu Zhongguo magazine, which Liu heads.

If Liu is American he'd be in violation of Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA). Pray tell, why would we lament Chinese money corrupting our political process, while sending many folds more to China, to corrupt their political process?

This is by no means a straight foward case of free speech. Liu took foreign money the Chinese government has every right to prohibit (as we do under FARA.)

My reading of the verdict is that the Chinese court decided Liu's political speech exceeded the limit of free speech, at least in part due to the prosecution evidence showing Liu received foreign remittance.

My response (forgive the redundancy):

Thanks for your comment.

Sure, I read the Chinese government claim that Liu would be in violation of FARA:

http://www.chinais.com/2010/01/some-facts-about-ned-and-liu-xiaobo.html

However, this isn't the case. FARA provides an exemption for "Any person engaging or agreeing to engage only . . . (2) in other activities not serving predominantly a foreign interest". Does anyone really wish to make the argument that the promotion of free speech is an activity serving primarily a "foreign, i.e. U.S., interest"? See the preamble of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948 by the UN, of which China is a member:

"Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people".

Another example: In Israel, many organizations whose declared purpose is to protect Palestinian rights are primarily funded by European governments. This does not result in prison sentences being handed down against the employees of these organizations.

Jeffrey