"I have no enemies," Liu Xiaobo's final statement in court. On December 8, 2008, Liu Xiaobo was arrested in Beijing. Two days later, the "Charter 08" was released. He was sentenced to 11 years in prison for inciting subversion of state power. In 2010, he won the Nobel Peace Prize in prison. On July 13, 2017, he became the first Nobel laureate to die in custody since German journalist Carl von Ossietzky in 1938.
Today is July 13, 2025, eight years since Liu Xiaobo's death. In today's Chinese context, the name of this Nobel laureate has long disappeared from public space and the Internet, and DeepSeek has also erased his existence. But he was the most watched academic star in China in the 1980s. On the evening of June 3, 1989, he stayed in Tiananmen Square and negotiated with the military and the government, so that the student protesters in Tiananmen Square avoided the bloodshed that occurred elsewhere in Beijing. Despite having many opportunities to go into exile abroad, he chose to stay in China and was imprisoned many times.
In this episode, we invited the famous sinologist Perry Link. In 2023, Perry Link and Chinese scholar Wu Dazhi co-authored "I Have No Enemies: Liu Xiaobo's Life and Legacy." This book introduces Liu Xiaobo's personal experience and ideological evolution, and also outlines the complex picture of Chinese political thought and dissident movements in the past half century.
We discussed with Perry Link about Liu Xiaobo in his eyes: How did a person who claimed to "have no enemies" challenge a highly adversarial political system? Is Liu Xiaobo's fate also a microcosm of the collective fate of Chinese liberal intellectuals? Can his political legacy still resonate in a high-pressure era?
**Timeline:**
00:03 Who is Liu Xiaobo?
02:36 Perry Link's first impression of Liu Xiaobo: "Young, talkative, and impulsive"
06:11 Charter 08: The Chinese society expected by intellectuals
09:44 Liu Xiaobo's work before his arrest: editing Charter 08 and finding people to sign it
10:28 Recalling the process of translating Charter 08
16:23 Liu Xiaobo in Perry Link's eyes: independent thinking, "greedy reading", and strong self-criticism
22:08 Liu Xiaobo wins the Nobel Peace Prize, "This is the time"
24:01 Iconoclast, rebellious by nature, the storm of "China needs to be colonized for three hundred years"
30:29 How to understand Liu Xiaobo's saying "I have no enemies", is it a strategy? Moral declaration? Or political philosophy?
34:55 Is there still hope for non-violent democratic transition? "Openly lying flat" is also a kind of resistance
41:00 Liu Xiaobo once hoped that the Internet would spread ideas, but did the Internet eventually become a tool of the rulers?
44:50 The story of two stadiums: those executed by firing squad and Messi fans
48:23 "Liu Xiaobo Biography" does not avoid Liu Xiaobo's disgraceful past, including his infidelity to his ex-wife
54:59 If Liu Xiaobo were still alive, would he be a Trump fan? How does he view feminism and the metoo movement?
58:52 The missing final manuscript, "There must be his most precious and mature things"
01:00:35 After Liu Xiaobo, where are the new faces?
01:03:30 Why the Western world doesn't care about Liu Xiaobo, and talks emptily about the dangers of Chinese autocracy
01:10:35 Guest recommendation
Guest Recommendations:
Michael J. Klarman, "The Framers' Coup: The Making of the United States Constitution"
Cha Jianying, "Trains: A Chinese Family History of Railway Journeys, Exile, and Survival"
"Chai Jing Interviews Chinese Soldiers Fighting for Ukraine: 'My Heart Houses My Dead Brothers'"
Related Links:
Perry Link, Wu Dazhi, "I Have No Enemies: Liu Xiaobo's Life and Legacy"
Liu Xiaobo: "I Have No Enemies - My Final Statement"
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Original title:
林培瑞：去世八年，刘晓波给我们留下了什么？
Original description:
<p>“我没有敌人”，这是刘晓波在法庭上的最后陈述。2008年12月8日，刘晓波在北京被捕，两天后《零八宪章》发布，他被以煽动颠覆国家政权罪判处11年监禁，2010年他在狱中获得了诺贝尔和平奖，20…
