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Comment by gentro | Hacker News Reader

You ever get the feeling this Nobel Prize and the western media's fawning coverage of Liu Xiaobo is really just about westerners making themselves feel better?

China will get democracy one day. It will be because a large swath of Chinese people want it. Although there have been some high profile dissidents in China over the last 30 years, including Liu Xiaobo and the 1989 students, most Chinese are probably not ready for their message of political openness. They're still focused on lower levels of the Maslow hierarchy like shelter and food.

These dissidents have the bad luck of poor timing. In another 30 or 40 years when China is fully developed, their ideas may be well accepted among citizenry and party reformers.

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Under what conditions, exactly, do you think democracy originally came to be? This is a really bizarre, historically nonsensical comment that is unnecessarily dismissive of people who have sacrificed lives or livelihoods to pave the way for fundamental human rights in their country.

Democracy used to include only middle and upper class people (i.e. you had to have some wealth to be able to vote) and was only relatively recently extended to everyone.

Exactly.

In my father's life, it was not allowed to vote unless you were the owner outright of property and women gained suffrage in his early years. My father lacked a birth certificate, and this prevented him from voting, until resolved. Imagine every child of a single parent family disenfranchised...

If you asked me this in 1989, we were all sure china will get democracy in 20 or 30 years, it was just a matter of time. The 30th anniversary of Tiananmen is in a couple of years, and things haven't gotten much better.

I was told in 2006 by a prominent Chinese researcher when visiting that there were just a bunch of old fogeys in government and that's why some internet sites were blocked. They would die off/retire soon and the internet would be completely open. Of course, that isn't what happened: after the 2008 Olympics things got much worse and today we fondly look back on 2006 as s time when we could actually use Facebook in china without fiddling through a VPN.

We were told in 2010 that Beijing's air pollution problem would definitely be solved by 2020.

When I first lived in china 2002, I found longer term expats to be so salty and cynical, wow they are so close minded! Before I left just last year I of course had become that expat.

In another 30 or 40 year what china will be honestly can't be predicted.

>You ever get the feeling this Nobel Prize and the western media's fawning coverage of Liu Xiaobo is really just about westerners making themselves feel better?

Not really. Imagine if the Nobel institute only granted the prize to Europeans. Imagine the furore that would cause. Now, sure, the winners have often been controversial. Here, I can't disagree. I mean, what's not to like about someone who wants to change their own country for the better?

Sure, the man himself seems beyond reproach, and I admire his courage. But in another sense that's just what I mean, that we can sit here, read this news, and nod approvingly at this man's actions.

But beyond our own consumption of this narrative, his efforts are pretty much irrelevant to any eventual democratization in China.

That sounds defeatist. It all has to start somewhere. Someone has to get the ideas rolling. The road to democracy in the western world was long and tortuous and stretched back a millennium or more, but we got there. His ideas are not in vain.

We can't just simply discount the effect of the Nobel prize and world media coverage of Liu Xiaobo. I am reading the book Perfect Hostage by Justin Wintle, it's about the life of Aung San Suu Kyi. And, yes there were a lot of Burmese people and their leader who fought fearlessly for democracy, but I think in addition to that there is a real sizable effect of Suu Kyi winning the Nobel peace prize and world media coverage following it. Whether you like to attribute it or not, I think the effect is very real. Suu Kyi was house arrested for few years when she was awarded the Nobel prize, this was followed by many other awards and recognition, the world media coverage about Suu Kyi and their cause increased and so did the general awareness about the plight of the people and their struggle, and so did the diplomatic pressure from other countries, sanctions, embargoes etc. I know the situation of present day China and Burma in the early 90s is very different but I think the point still stands.

I absolutely agree with your premise.

But I cannot help but feel saddened, to reduce the prize to a level of the publicity it conveys.

Neither can I eradicate the thought that awarding such a prize in this manner surely is felt as a provocation by the Chinese government as you rightly point out that the sole effect is of publicising and canonising a man whom they are, by their values, imprisoning justly for admitted subversion.

It's definitely more than just publicity. There's a difference. Being on the cover of a Time magazine is publicity. But a Nobel Prize (or similar recognition) is not just publicity. It's elevating a person to the same stature as Nelson Mandela, MLK etc. It's hope to the people following them, it's inspiration, it's recognition. It's a signal to the establishment that it's no longer just a dissident but perhaps birth of a movement, if history has taught us anything. It's definitely more. If not anything, there is a big chunk of prize money, it generally is put to use for a good cause too. :)

Just yesterday I heard someone talking about Liu Xiaobo on BBC. Sorry, I did not get the name or anything else, but I assume that was woman from China. She said pretty much the same: before the Nobel prize he was just one of the many, not particularly interesting. After the prize he was singled out and his wife was put on the house arrest.

Suu Kyi gained her freedom, won an election, then ignored a genocide.

Democracy is not magic. A failing state is a failing state, regardless of the system of government. Great rebels rarely make for great politicians.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/rohingya-muslim... https://theintercept.com/2017/04/13/burmese-nobel-prize-winn...

Exactly my point.

Myanmar got their freedom. Now, there is another problem and the current establishment isn't doing enough. And, what you shared is, again, the world media covering these lapses. Suu Kyi did a lot right in the fight for freedom, but doesn't make her infallible. Perhaps some one else from within Myanmar will rise up and champion the cause. And, the world media and external entities do their part to help in terms of coverage, spreading awareness, diplomatic pressure, sanctions etc. We cannot just brush off the efforts of the latter saying they are doing it just to please themselves.

There is an assumption that the "One person one vote democratic system is the best system for any country in any stage". However, the data just don't support this assumption.

https://www.ted.com/talks/eric_x_li_a_tale_of_two_political_...

> most Chinese are probably not ready for their message of political openness

Isn't this exactly the problem. Someone else deciding what you are ready or not ready for. For me democracy is about everyone having a voice, even those on the lower levels. There will always be different levels.

This assumes that Chinese will want to be more like the west. Maybe this would have been true when China was economically underdeveloped, but as living standards improve they might care less what outsiders think and instead think they have something better. There's too much "White Man's Burden" ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Man's_Burden ) thinking going on here.

This idea - that democracy and freedom of thought/speech are Western values - is incredibly dangerous and needs to die.

Japan, Korea, Taiwan etc aren't Western countries.

Well. I guess most chinese people agree that "freedom of thought/speech" is a great thing. Actually, Chinese people did enjoy most of this freedom now except one thing "Promote one person, one vote and multi-party" political system in public.

Korea and Taiwan got their best economic growth stage when they are in an authoritarian stage. China is still in this stage.

Japan is an interesting story worths to study.

Besides these countries, there are many countries, such as many in Africa, doesn't become better after the democratic process.

The Chinese government has a point that "Let's concentrate and grow the economic first. After everybody has a much better economic status, we can consider other things". I think they did have a good point on it.

I found this to be quite condescending -- "lower levels of Maslow hierarchy".

Have you considered that perhaps most Chinese people are "made unready" for democracy simply because of the extreme suppressions by an authoritarian regime?

Or have you considered that perhaps food, shelter, and openness are not mutually exclusive -- that one must have one in order to have another?

But it's true, equally so for the U.S., by the way. People with high income are twice as likely to participate in the democratic process as poor people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_the_United_St...

It also makes perfect sense if you look at the post-medieval revival of the democratic idea: It was the emerging middle-class, rich people, who demanded participation in the governing processes.

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