Trump’s trade war may have helped Liu Xia win her freedom, Chinese dissident Liao Yiwu says
The writer and human rights advocate says the US president’s trade war may have helped Liu Xia, the widow of Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo, win her release and move to Germany
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is credited with playing a leading role in winning the release of Liu Xia, the widow of Chinese human rights activist and Noble Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, from eight years of de facto house arrest in China.
But an outspoken Chinese dissident believes that US President Donald Trump ought to be thanked as well.
The Chinese writer-in-exile Liao Yiwu told an audience in New York on Wednesday that Trump may have had something to do with the release of his friend Liu, who was allowed to leave China for Germany in July.
“If the US had not launched a trade war with China, it is impossible to tell if Liu Xia would have been allowed to leave China or not,” he told a packed room at a panel discussion hosted by the Václav Havel Library Foundation in Manhattan.
“I know that most of the West doesn’t particularly like Donald Trump, but in this particular case, I’m grateful to Trump for launching the trade war.”
