MATTERS OF INTEREST

LIU, MR X.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (15:24): In early October the Nobel Peace Prize for 2010 was awarded to Liu Xiaobo. Mr Liu was awarded this honour in recognition of his longstanding and non-violent struggle for human rights in China. He is currently serving his fourth term in prison, gaoled for 11 years for alleged subversion. Because of stringent government censorship within China, the majority of Chinese citizens remain unaware of Mr Liu's pro-democracy campaign. In fact, when news of the announcement filtered across Beijing by word of mouth, one of the most common questions overheard was: who is Liu Xiaobo?

Liu Xiaobo is a professor specialising in modern Chinese literature. He toured Norway and the United States in the late 1980s before returning to China to assist with the pro-democracy campaign. In 1989 Mr Liu served as an adviser to the student protesters in Tiananmen Square, and subsequently spent 21 months in prison for his role in the protest. He was again arrested in 1996 for advocating the release of Tiananmen Square student organisers still imprisoned, and spent another three years in a hard labour camp.

In December 2008, Mr Liu led 303 Chinese activists, lawyers, intellectuals, fellow academics, retired government officials, workers and peasants in drafting a manifesto titled Charter 08. Published to mark the 60^th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Charter 08 articulated an alternative future for China. Despite the Chinese government's best efforts, Charter 08 was accessed online by thousands of Chinese citizens who worked out ways to get around China's notorious 'great firewall'.

For those who found ways to access Charter 08, they were able to glimpse a plan for a very different China—a China free from widespread corruption; a China that honoured the International Declaration of Human Rights; a China that protected workers and the environment; and a China that embraced multiparty democracy.

Eventually, Charter 08 gained more than 10,000 Chinese signatories, and the manifesto united the pro-democracy movement in China like never before. It encouraged younger Chinese to become politically active, and it served as an important reminder to the world that, despite the sanitised China on display during the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the Chinese people remain politically and socially repressed. When asked about the choice for this year's Nobel Peace Prize, the Norwegian Nobel Committee Chairman, Thorbjoern Jagland, said, 'We have to speak when others cannot speak.'

The Nobel committee's announcement has placed a spotlight on China's human rights violations. The award serves as a reminder that, while China has achieved significant economic advances in recent times, there is still so much to be done in terms of advancement of human rights. The Norwegian Nobel committee believed that with China's new global power must come increased scrutiny and responsibility. China continues to breach several international agreements to which it is a signatory, as well as its own constitution. Article 35 of China's constitution states:

Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration.

Yet how does this section of China's constitution reconcile with the arrests of Mr Liu and other pro-democracy campaigners? I am pleased that last week Australia's new foreign minister, Kevin Rudd (a man very much respected by his global peers for his extensive knowledge of China), announced that the Chinese government had agreed to resume formal human rights talks with Australia.

Minister Rudd confirmed that he raised Australia's ongoing concerns about human rights violations with the Chinese deputy foreign minister, Cui Tiankai, during his visit to China last week. While China had previously cancelled human rights talks due to take place in September this year, minister Cui Tiankai has now agreed to restart the dialogue next month.

So, I take some encouragement from this and hope that perhaps our new foreign minister, with a unique insight into China, will be the right person to take dialogue with China further than ever before; because Australia must continue to hold China accountable, and we must push for the immediate release of Mr Liu and all other pro-democracy campaigners.