Beijing Olympics’ Spiritual Toll on China

In September 2008, three months before police arrived around midnight to take him from his home, to which he would never return — he died in custody nine years later, after having won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010 — Liu Xiaobo wrote a brilliant essay on that year’s Summer Olympics in Beijing.

Were Liu alive today, there can be no doubt that he would denounce the genocide and culture-cide that are taking place in Xinjiang, the suffocating colonization that continues in Tibet and Southern Mongolia, the machine-like crushing of freedom in Hong Kong, and the CCP’s existential threat to Taiwan. But Liu’s splendid 2008 essay looked inward: It was about the costs of the Olympics to China’s Han majority.

About the Author

Perry Link

Mr. Link holds the Chancellorial Chair for Teaching across Disciplines at the University of California, Riverside.

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In September 2008, three months before police arrived around midnight to take him from his home, to which he would never return — he died in custody nine years later, after having won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010 — Liu Xiaobo wrote a brilliant essay on that year’s Summer Olympics in Beijing.

Were Liu alive today, there can be no doubt that he would denounce the genocide and culture-cide that are taking place in Xinjiang, the suffocating colonization that continues in Tibet and Southern Mongolia, the machine-like crushing of freedom in Hong Kong, and the CCP’s existential threat to Taiwan. But Liu’s splendid 2008 essay looked inward: It was about the costs of the Olympics to China’s Han majority.