Norwegian Nobel Institute
Drammensveien 19
N-0255 Oslo
Norway
January 27, 2009
Dear Members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee:
I, Xu Wenli, take great honour in nominating Dr. Wang Bingzhang, the undaunted champion of Human Rights and Democracy for China, as a strong candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize of 2009. This is in recognition of his consistent campaign for a reign of freedom and a rule of justice in China, and his leadership of the overseas Chinese political opposition movement against the dictatorial rule of the Chinese Communist Party over the past two decades. Sadly, Dr. Wang Bingzhang was kidnapped in June 2002 in Vietnam and arrested by the Chinese police. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in early 2003, and has since then been languishing in solitary confinement in a prison in Shaoguan, Guangdong Province, China.
Dr. Wang Bingzhang was a practicing surgeon in China in the late 1970s. He travelled to Montreal, Canada and, pursued a PhD in Experimental Medicine at McGill University in 1980, becoming the first student from the People’s Republic of China to receive a PhD degree from the West.
However, upon his graduation, Dr. Wang came to realize that what ailed China and what needed treatment most were not diseases of the body, but the corrupt government and the dictatorial rule, which were threatening the very stability and sustainable development of society. He refused to accept the cynical notion that generation after generation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of mutual destruction. China must develop and a fundamental reform must be achieved in an unarmed struggle. Dr. Wang Bingzhang embraced such a strong belief in reform, when most of the Chinese passively accepted the status quo and hardly opposed the system actively.
To this end, Dr. Wang set out on a lifelong quest to fight for democracy and human rights in China as an answer to the crucial political and moral question of our time, the need for Man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression. In 1982, he launched the journal China Spring in the United States, which featured articles by Chinese intellectuals, both within and outside of China, and focused on promoting democratic ideals. The journal was widely read in the Chinese-speaking world, and found its way into China proper, where it gained currency among students with a hunger for information and ideas that the party-controlled press could not satiate. Dr. Wang refused to accept the notion that “democracy” and “human rights” are but Western rhetoric and that the adoption of these ideas in China will bring about social crisis. In the same year, he established the very first organization against the Chinese Communist dictatorship in New York, the Chinese Alliance for Democracy. Before Dr. Wang, there had been no organized political opposition by the Chinese people themselves because the democratic sentiment in China had been harshly and continuously suppressed by the Communist Party. Few people could afford to challenge a brutal regime. Since Dr. Wang, this has been changed fundamentally. During his life-long campaign for democracy in China he often referred to a sentence from David Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience: “We can no longer lend our cooperation to an evil system.” He also cited quotations from Martin Luther King: "Peace is not merely the absence of some negative force--war, tension, confusion, but it is the presence of some positive force--justice, goodwill, the power of the kingdom of God."
Based on these beliefs, Dr. Wang boldly called for multi-party elections, a free press, respect for human rights, and the establishment of the rule of law. His undaunted advocacy of human rights and democracy unlocked hitherto tightly sealed doors of hope and transformed thousands of people’s imminent cosmic elegies into a psalm of creative fulfillment. He was instrumental in awakening a new generation of Chinese scholars abroad and forging the path for those who were willing to stand up to the monolith since then.
Dr. Wang's name has endured for the way in which he has waged his unrelenting struggle, personifying in his conduct the words that were spoken to people. Over his two-decade long career of political dissidence, Dr. Wang saw the movement he cultivated flourish and falter. But it was not because he led the first organized political opposition to stand up against the Communist regime that he achieved fame, it is the idea that has guided him, and since he declared his unyielding belief in these ideas at the start of his career as a dissident, they have been embraced by the democracy movement as a whole, and have guided the movement as well. Despite the difficulties he suffered, he never turned his back on the movement and, remarkably, never badmouthed those who had betrayed him. In his writings, he emphasized the importance of forgiveness and understanding in the struggle for Chinese democracy, drawing inspiration from figures such as Mr. Nelson Mandela and Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, the founding father of modern China.
Dr. Wang loved his country and his nation and felt encouraged when he saw that China’s economic progress was achieved through market liberalization and recognition of private property rights, which he has advocated since 1983. However, he never wavered in his belief that political changes were needed to promote the further development of China. More importantly, he has always believed that a sustainable democracy can never be imposed from outside, but must be homegrown. Thus, he continued his activism even as China’s economy soared. He founded the first Chinese opposition party in the United States, the China Democracy and Justice Party, a task which took him back to his homeland in 1998. For this, he was detained and held for several days before being expelled from China. However, this challenge only served to stir up his courage further and he had never heeded the threats to his own safety. He persisted in attempting to return home to spearhead the establishment of a real opposition party from within. Eventually, he was arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Dr. Wang Bingzhang's contributions, in words, deeds, and ultimately, in personal sacrifice, to the cause of democracy are unsurpassed by the legions of patriots who have labored under the yoke of the Chinese communist dictatorship. His entire life stands as a symbol of the work and sacrifices that are required of individuals to give birth to liberty.
As his life ebbs in a Chinese prison and as we confront the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, there is no greater gesture to this man and no greater recognition to the struggle he pioneered than to award Dr. Wang the Nobel Prize for Peace.
Yours Sincerely,
Xu Wenli
Senior Fellow
Watson Institute for International Studies
Brown University