Nobel Prize award brings joy, sadness to a Chinese abroad

It was very courageous of the Nobel committee to award the Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo in spite of the enormous pressure from the Chinese government. I only know the man from reading about what he has done for human rights in China and the suffering that he and his family have had to endure thus far. He is without a doubt a worthy recipient of this award.

The news brings both joy and sadness to me. As a Chinese myself, I am very happy for him, his family and the Chinese people (note that this does not include the Chinese government) that Liu, a Chinese dissident, has been given this honour in recognition of his peaceful promotion of human rights in China. This very much validates all the personal sacrifices that he and his family have had to make over the years and shines a bright light on the importance of his work regarding freedom, human rights and democracy in China.

I very much hope that, in spite of the strict censorship that the Chinese government has put on the media and internet (which is totally ridiculous in this day and age), his message will get out to more and more people in China. I hope that some day it will gain so much momentum that the Chinese government will be forced to change its ways.

The sadness that I also feel comes from the fact that, if the Chinese government had been more tolerant of diverse views and respectful of human rights and freedoms, Liu would not have had to go through these struggles, and the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize would have had been under different circumstances and context.

Freedom, personal rights and democracy are not Western concepts. They are universal human values. As citizens of humanity, all of us have a stake in helping people in China achieve their goal of a society built on a foundation of respect for human rights, freedom, diversity and rule of law. I hope Liu's Nobel Prize today will mark the beginning of a new chapter in Chinese history.

Arthur Chan, Vancouver, Canada