LIU XIABO, R.I.P.

Liu Xiabo, Nobel Prize, activist, political prisoner, died in a Beijing hospital in what feels like a sequel to a Solzhenitsyn story. 

His death is an indicator of the tectonic changes which have occurred since the Tienanmen tragedy in 1989, when he sided with the students. The start-up China then has become a world power since.  Hence, most of the obituaries have avoided mentioning the massacre. They have preferred to focus on his wife, Liu Xia, ignoring an event which continues to haunt the current Chinese leadership, which wants the Chinese dream not to be overtaken by this past nightmare.

The "lite reaction" in the West is also an indicator of the opportunistic amnesia which has overtaken most forms of moral indignation. China's international reputation will hardly suffer.  Chinese government censors and overall indifference took care of the aftermath. Nevertheless, Liu Xia's empty chair in Oslo is a "virus" that no Chinese censor will be able to get rid of. He existentially hacked cyberspace.