This year, we have grown accustomed to thinking about China's strengths. We have been awed by its mountainous foreign exchange reserves and by its ability to power ahead in a global downturn. We have seen its ever-more sophisticated military and naval hardware on display. And we have witnessed its growing confidence on the world stage, to wit, its shrill lectures on the dangers of the US deficit and a weakening dollar.

But our infatuation with China's strengths is in danger of blinding us to its palpable weaknesses. How else can we explain Beijing's indictment for subversion – after a year being held virtually incommunicado – of Liu Xiaobo, a veteran human rights campaigner?

Mr Liu's “crime” is that he co-authored Charter 08, an appeal for multiparty democracy, constitutional reforms and the rule of law, that was signed by several thousand people last year before it was snuffed from the internet by censors. The Charter, inspired by Czechoslovakia's Charter 77, contained the line: “We should end the practice of treating words as crimes.” Clearly, the Communist party has not heeded that message. The 53-year-old former literature professor, who has already done stints in jail, now faces a further five years, perhaps more, in prison.