Document Type

Article

Disciplines

International Law

Abstract

On the 10th of December 2008, the sixtieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), a group of Chinese intellectuals jointly declared "Charter 08," a manifesto for China's democratic reforms modeled after liberal constitutionalism widely practiced in the West.3 The original Charter had 303 signatories, but its online circulation soon triggered reverberations among many Mainland Internet users and unnerved the Chinese leadership, resulting in an immediate clampdown and the arrest of one of its prominent founders, Liu Xiaobo, a literature-professor-cum-dissident. Having endured a number of closed trials, Liu was found guilty, on 25 December 2009, of the crime of "inciting subversion of state power" by co-authoring Charter 08 and publishing six problematic articles online.5 The Chinese government imposed an all-out ban on the campaign in a bid to minimize publicity. Liu remains the only Charter 08 signatory to have been formally charged and incarcerated. To the chagrin of the Chinese government, the Norwegian Nobel Committee named Liu winner of the 2010 Peace Prize in October 2010 for his "long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China."' The Chinese government was humiliated. The nation had just recently hosted the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 2010 Shanghai World Expo - two impressive achievements of which all Chinese could be proud - and surely this had proved that democracy was not required to accomplish such feats.

What is the need for democracy when a government could manage to pull hundreds of millions out of poverty in the space of three decades' and secure the country's place as the second largest economy in the 21s' century?' Is there a preponderant human need that transcends sheer material desire for which some even dare to risk their lives? Does a nation have dignity if its people have no dignity? These questions permeate John Fitzgerald's interesting paper on China's national dignity and individual dignity. ' Despite a common assumption linking the nation's drive for development and its people's quest for civil rights with a utilitarian pursuit of self-interest, Fitzgerald argues, "We make too little allowance for the possibility that China pursues wealth and power for the sake of asserting national dignity, and that citizens demand rights, not in pursuit of liberty or happiness, but out of concern to preserve personal dignity."" In light of Francis Fukuyama's thesis of "the struggle for recognition" in The End of History and the Last Man,12 Fitzgerald identifies the Greek term thymos (04g6q), understood as "a propensity to feel self-esteem," as the universal drive that propels people to fight for democracy.13 In the case of China, Fitzgerald contrasts the notion of Chinese people "standing up" at the People's Republic's founding in 1949 with "the felt experience of a people reduced to jostling, crying and trading blows at home" during the Cultural Revolution. 4 Today, the same nation is an economic and political power. At the same time its burgeoning middle-class argue with the authorities about the cause of illness to babies after drinking tainted formula," and continue to seek the truth that would explain the massive school collapses that occurred during the 2008 Sichuan earthquake." While China as a nation has, by many standards, positioned itself as a respected superpower-in-waiting, 7 powerless individuals who dare to stand up for their share of dignity languish precariously at the margins of society.

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