China’s Orphaned Dissidents
Political exiles reckon with a rising China and a lost cause.
The last days of the most prominent Chinese dissident were brief.
In late June, Chinese prison authorities announced that Liu Xiaobo was being given medical parole for treatment of late-stage liver cancer. Two weeks later, he was dead at the age of 61.
For dissidents abroad, like Hu Ping, the loss was devastating. A lodestar had fallen. A democracy activist who left China for Harvard University in 1987, Hu saw Liu as the leading human rights champion among them. Hu twice hosted the future Nobel Peace Prize laureate at his home in the United States before Liu returned to Beijing to lead the mass movement against the government that began at Tiananmen Square in 1989.
“China desperately needs a symbol like Liu Xiaobo, and it will be quite hard to replace him now,” Hu said. “That’s why so many of us were deeply saddened by his passing.”
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Han "Harry" Chen is a freelance reporter from China, who recently completed his M.A. in international reporting at CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. He is now based in Washington D.C. He tweets @HarryChen93.