Remember Liu Xiaobo

Whenever we see China's Tiananmen Square in the news, we should remember Liu Xiaobo. China would like the world to see its economic progress, growing military strength in the Pacific, even its efforts to combat climate change. But those of us who hoped China's Communist Party would grant the reforms peaceful pro-democracy demonstrators requested in April, 1989, will never forget how, on June 3-4, 1989, tanks and soldiers poured into Tiananmen Square to crush their own people.

     Along with the 31 pro-democracy leaders who were tried and executed, Liu Xiaobo was under arrest for 28 years until he died of liver cancer in July, 2017. China prevented him from receiving his 2010 Nobel Peace Prize in person or leaving China for treatment of liver cancer in the West, but it will never be able to remove his name from the list of those who have received Nobel Peace Prizes for trying to make the world better for all of us.