CHINA’S MOST famous dissident, the imprisoned pro-democracy activist Liu Xiaobo, won the Nobel Peace Prize yesterday, an announcement that Beijing had expected and strongly criticised.
Mr Liu was jailed for 11 years last December for writing a 2008 manifesto with other Chinese activists that calls for free speech and multi-party elections.
China’s reaction was swift, and outraged.
“To me, the Nobel Peace Prize should be given to those who advocate the harmony of nations, who seek to improve friendship between countries. But Liu Xiaobo is a criminal sentenced by the judicial administration in China because he broke the law, and his actions are the absolute opposite of what the Nobel Peace Prize is about,” said ministry of foreign affairs spokesman Ma Chaoxu.
“To award this prize to a person like this goes against the true spirit of this prize, it is an insult to the prize.”
It was the first Nobel prize for the Chinese dissident community since China began economic, but not political, reforms more than 30 years ago.
The award could have major repercussions within China because until now, Liu Xiaobo was a marginal figure most Chinese people knew little about. By granting the award to Mr Liu, millions of Chinese people in all sectors of society will be asking who he is and why he was sentenced to the longest ever jail term given to someone for subversion.
The award also brings the spotlight back onto China’s human rights record, at a time when most of the focus has been on the country’s impressive economic development. China’s economic boom is helping to prop up the shaky global economy, and few governments have been particularly forthright in denouncing Beijing’s lack of press freedom and unwillingness to allow more democracy.
Crucially, the award comes just days before the Communist Party leadership is due to meet for an annual plenum to decide the country’s five-year plan and also work out succession issues, with President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao due to step down in two years’ time in favour of Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang.
The attention brought on China’s political system by the Nobel Peace Prize could lead to tensions between the various factions running the Communist Party.
The award could prompt a debate among the leadership and the elite over whether China should begin democratic reforms.
Finding online reaction was difficult because most comments were blocked by China’s efficient system of internet censorship, popularly known as the Great Firewall of China.
Foreign television is only allowed in diplomatic compounds, hotels where mostly foreigners are staying and a few other select venues, but within minutes of the announcement, BBC coverage was blacked out, followed by CNN, Singapore’s Channel News Asia and other international agencies.
Much of the reaction among Chinese people was negative, with many interviewees seeing it as an attempt by the West to interfere with China’s domestic issues.
Mr Liu’s lawyer Shang Baojun said the award was great news for the Chinese people.
“We had hoped for many years that one day we would win the Nobel prize, and today this dream became reality,” he said in a telephone interview.
“I hope that his case and his winning this great prize will be an opportunity to improve freedom of speech, democracy and the legal system in China,” he said.
Mr Shang said he did not expect the award to help expedite Mr Liu’s release. He said China was undergoing a difficult time of adjustment in the legal system and that some things were out of balance, but he hoped the Chinese parliament, the National People’s Congress, would give Mr Liu an amnesty.
The rights group Reporters Without Borders said in a statement that “the Chinese government’s threats of reprisals failed to intimidate the Nobel Committee and the Norwegian authorities. It is a lesson for all the democratic governments that too often bow to pressure from Beijing,” it said.
Heidi Hautala, chairwoman of the European Parliament’s Subcommittee on Human Rights, said the decision to give the award to Mr Liu was “strong support for the struggle for the freedom of expression in China”.