Liu Xia: A woman whose existence is an embarrassment to China

FRANK CHING

IN the month since the death of Liu Xiaobo, China’s Nobel peace laureate, world attention has shifted to focus on the fate of his widow, Liu Xia, who had been kept under illegal house arrest ever since her husband was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in October 2010 while serving an 11-year prison term for “inciting subversion of state power.”