Nobel Peace Laureate Liu Xiaobo was not fortunate, as his fellow comrades in reward and trials, to see the fruits of their labors. He did not become the first democratically elected president of his country, as released from the internment camp Lech Walesa or released from prison by Nelson Mandela. He did not even become a people's deputy, as academician Sakharov, exempt from exile,.

The funeral of Mandela was a global event. Sakharov many representatives of the establishment and the people continued to hate in the years of "perestroika" - yet thousands of people defended the line to say goodbye to the Nobel laureate. Liu Xiaobo will not even have a solemn funeral. About his death in general, few people will remember in China - although it is understandable that the reluctance of the government of this country to release a seriously ill prisoner for treatment has deprived him of any chance of victory over cancer.

Liu Xiaobo for many years will remain a figure important for the West and quite uninteresting compatriots. But at the same time, practically no one at the official level will tell the Chinese authorities and the shadow of the reproach for the slow murder of one of the world's most famous citizens of this country. It is worth remembering that with the other countries that violate human rights, the West acts more decisively. Nobody was afraid to impose sanctions against the Soviet Union and now - against Russia. No one doubted the need to adopt the "Magnitsky law". No one constrains himself in terms when it comes to Putin, Raul Castro, Kim Jong-in, or the Iranian ayatollahs. But the contribution of the countries led by these authoritarian rulers to the world economy is insignificant. They need the West, and not they - the West.

With China everything is different. The silence of the West is proof of how interdependence wins out any values, any talk about democracy and the inflexibility of the civilized world. Proof of how much money in the modern world is more important than values. Liu Xiaobo paid for this proof of life.

After all, even with Russia, any sanctions until recently ended where the energy began. What can we say about China! The role of China in the world economy is so great that no one in the West - from politicians to business - is simply not interested in what actually happens in a country that remains the patrimony of the communist elite.

But if, at one point, the Chinese economy slows down and collapses because of the contradictions between tasks and dogmas, everyone will shake their heads and say that in vain the leadership of the Celestial Empire did not listen to Liu Xiaobo and other supporters of democratization in the country. The fact that Western politicians and businessmen have cooperated for decades with the Chinese regime, without trying to change anything, will remain behind the brackets of this regret.

Original.