The Liu Xiaobo Nobel Peace Prize
Opportunity or Obstacle to Change?
October 27, 2010
Speaker: Phelim Kine
Chair: Andrew Nathan
NATHAN: Phelim Kine, who works with Human Rights Watch, is posted in their office in Hong Kong. I will keep the intro brief, and go right to it.
KINE: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for coming. I really appreciate it. Liu Xiaobo, and the Nobel win, has put China and China’s human rights record and environment squarely in the front of the world attention, media attention. And I want to talk about that, because it’s a real opportunity but also a real challenge in terms of how, from both inside and outside China, this award can be used as an attraction for meaningful change. But if I’m going to talk about Liu Xiaobo, it’s really important that I talk about the wider context in terms of human rights in China and how we have gotten to this, because Liu Xiaobo’s arrest, conviction, and Nobel is very much a piece in terms of how things have changed and are changing in China, and, with regard to human rights, how in many ways the human rights situation in China has deteriorated over the last four years.