Staff editorial: 2010 Nobel offers Obama chance to earn his prize

WE SAY President Barack Obama can earn his 2009 Peace Prize prize by championing the cause of this year’s winner.

Liu Xiaobo is currently serving an 11-year prison sentence for “inciting subversion of state power” in the People’s Republic of China.

What did Liu do that constituted said incitement? He wrote essays that contained statements not to the Communist Party’s liking.

He helped author a document called Charter 08 in which some 2,000 Chinese citizens called for 19 specific reforms, including the institution of legislative democracy, an end to one-party rule and the protection of freedom of expression and private property.

The Chinese government might have thought Liu deserved to be imprisoned for these things.

Fortunately, the Norwegian Nobel Committee thought he deserved the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize.

As the committee put it, Liu has been recognized “for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China.” And he “has become the foremost symbol of this wide-ranging struggle.”

The committee’s decision makes Liu just the third Peace Prize laureate to win the award while under arrest.

That fact, along with China’s increasing importance to the United States’ prosperity, puts the winner of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize President Barack Obama, in a somewhat difficult position.

As is often the case when issues related to human rights in China return to the headlines, the leaders of influential and relatively free countries are encouraged to put pressure on Chinese leaders to protect their obvious human rights violations.

At the same time, leaders such as the U.S. president must bear in mind the real risks of giving the Chinese government a reason to inflict economic or other harm on our country or on our allies such as Taiwan and Japan.

They must also remember that merely calling for the release of a political prisoner or imploring the country’s leaders to respect individual rights does not necessarily increase the likelihood any prisoners will be released or any more rights will be protected.

Nevertheless, we believe it is incumbent upon Obama or Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to make a respectful — but unmistakably firm and principled — mention of the United States’ position on China’s egregious violations of human rights the next time they publicly confer with China’s leadership.

To fail to do so would be to implicitly sanction the unjust actions of Liu’s captors and the apparatus that supports them.