Liu Xiaobo and the Metaphor of Cross 51
Chapter 4 Liu Xiaobo and the Metaphor of Cross An Intellectual Journey of a Post-Tiananmen Dissident
Fuk-tsang Ying
Introduction
All Chinese elites want to be a Crucified Jesus and become a big hero who attracts worldwide attention. However, they are unwilling to be nailed to the cross for eternity, instead preferring to be nailed up for a while before being helped down to bear their cross amid the cheers of the people. This is a special feature of China, or what are called cross-bearing martyrs with Chinese characteristics.1
This statement was made to Liu Xiaobo by Geremie Barmé2 in April 1991, and was a statement Liu approved of deeply. We can understand this kind of “cross- bearing martyr with Chinese characteristics”, which is a phenomenon portrayed by Liu himself; however, what is more important is that after Liu experienced the June Fourth, he engaged in even deeper soul-searching and greater sacrifice over this term. The life and thought of Liu Xiaobo, winner of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize, has become the focus of investigation among the scholars in different disci- plines.3 As Perry Link pointed out, “although not formally a Christian, or a believer in any religion,” Jesus Christ was an important theme in Liu’s think· ing and writing.4 However, the impact of Liu’s growing understanding of Christianity on his writings and socio-political participation is still an
1 Liu Xiaobo, Mori xingcunzhe de dubai: guanyu wohe liusi [The Monologues of a Survivor of Doomsday: The June Forth and Me] (Taipei: Shibao wenhua chubanshe, 1992), 54. 2 He is the Chinese History Professor of Australian National University College of Asia and the Pacific, and a close friend of Liu Xiaobo. 3 The most recent academic studies included: Jeàn-Philippe Béja et. al. ed., Liu Xiabo, Charter 08 and the Challenges of Political Reform in China (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2012). Perry Link, Liu Xiaobo’s Empty Chair: Chronicling the Reform Movement Beijing Fears Most (New York: New York Review Books, 2011), Electronic Edition. Also Yu Jie, Liu Xiaobo Chuan [Biograpghy of Liu Xiaobo] (Hong Kong: Xinshiji chubanshe, 2012). 4 Perry Link, “Introduction,” in Liu Xiaobo, No Enemies, No Hatred: Selected Essays and Poems, eds. by Perry Link, Tienchi Martin-Liao, and Liu Xia (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University, 2012), xv.
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2017 | doi 10.1163/9789004350694_005 52 Ying important but uncultivated aspect in the field of studies. This paper attempted to rediscover the role of Christian value, and placed it back into the intellectual biography of Liu Xiaobo. In reconstructing the intellectual biography of Liu Xiaobo, it can be seen that the “cross” has always been an important metaphor, although his under- standing of the “cross” in different periods has reflected the evolutionary process of his searching. This article focuses on the “metaphor of the cross” in exploring Liu Xiaobo’s intellectual journey from the mid-1980s onward, par- ticularly his understanding of Christianity, and how this shaping him as a contemporary Chinese public intellectual, along with the relationship between the Christian value and the reality of Chinese context.
Transcendental Framework of Anti-traditionalism
Critiquing the Cross of Tradition In the 1980s, reform and opening up to the outside world led to China’s gradual emergence from the shadow cast by the cultural revolution, with intellectuals actively participating in soul-searching and debate over the future of Chinese culture, leading to the formation of the so-called “cultural fever” (wenhuare). This phenomenon reflected the Chinese intelligentsia’s exploration and evalu- ation of Chinese culture with its deep real political meaning.5 It is not doubt that Liu Xiaobo is an outstanding and prominent figure of the “cultural fever”.6 Liu Xiaobo was born in 1955 and was sent to live in the countryside (xia xiang) between 1969 and 1974. Graduating from the Chinese Language Department of Jilin University in 1982, he stayed on to teach in Beijing Normal University after taking his doctorate there in 1988.7 Liu attracted attention in
5 See Jing Wang, High Culture Fever: Politics, Aesthetics and Ideology in Deng’s China (Berkeley: University of California, 1996). Also Lowell Dittmer, “Rethinking China’s Cultural Revolution amid Reform,” in Chong Woei Lien ed., China’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution: Master Narratives and Post-Mao Counternarratives (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Litterfield Pub., 2002), pp. 15-19. Stacey Bieler, “Contemporary Chinese Intellectual, II: Undercurrents Leading to the Tiananmen Square, 1980-1988,” in Samuel Ling & Stacey Bieler eds., Chinese Intellectuals and the Gospel (New Jersey: P & R Pub., 1999), 33-56. 6 Chong Woei Lien, “Philosophy in an Age of Crisis: Three Thinkers in Post-Cultural Revolution China: Li Zehou, Liu Xiaobo and Liu Xiaofeng,” in China’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, 223-230. 7 “Liu Xiaobo.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online Academic Edition. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2011. Web.