Liu Xiaobo

On Japan Liu strongly opposed Japanese militarism, Stating that "Japan's far-right politics is no longer merely a current of public opinion, but is increasingly becoming the policy choice of the Japanese government".He advocated the formation of an alliance between China and South Korea, joined by other Asian countries that had been victims of Japanese aggression.He argued that such a coalition that founded on both strength and moral legitmacy can exert pressure on Japan while seeking broad support from the international community, thereby leaving Japan morally isolated.

Human rights activities On 27 April 1989, Liu returned to Beijing and immediately became an active supporter of the movement. When the army seemed ready to violently eject the students who persistently occupied Tiananmen Square in order to challenge the government and the army that was enforcing its declaration of martial law, he initiated a four-man three-day hunger strike on 2 June. Later referred to as the "Tiananmen Four Gentlemen Hunger Strike", the action earned the trust of the students. He requested that both the government and the students abandon the ideology of class struggle and adopt a new political culture of dialogue and compromise. Although it was too late to prevent the massacre which started on the night of 3 June from occurring beyond the square, he and his colleagues successfully negotiated with the student leaders and the army commander so the several thousand students who remained in the square would all be allowed to peacefully withdraw from it, thus preventing a possibly much larger scale of bloodshed. While Liu was detained in solitary confinement,

Global Times, part of the Chinese government-owned People's Daily, published a statement saying that Liu Xiaobo and his case had properly undergone "strict legal procedure", blaming Western regimes for sensationalizing the Liu Xiaobo story "in defiance of China's judicial sovereignty".

Medical parole and health On 26 June 2017, it was reported that Liu had been granted medical parole after being diagnosed with terminal liver cancer in late May 2017.

Former president George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush also expressed condolences. Honorary member of German, American, Portuguese, Czech and Sydney PEN Centers and Honorary President of Independent Chinese PEN Center.

A statue of Liu Xiaobo in Hong Kong was removed in November 2021 after the police objected to its presence.