JAILED CHINESE dissident Liu Xiaobo will be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in absentia in Oslo today, while China remains defiant in the face of international criticism of efforts to pressure foreign governments into boycotting the awards ceremony in Norway.
Beijing was outraged when Mr Liu was given the award in October, saying it was an “obscenity”, part of a western plot to destabilise China and insisting the jailed activist is a criminal.
“By enshrining a convict, the committee pulled the old trick of trying to impose the western values and political system on the rest of the world. By ‘enshrining’ Liu Xiaobo, it intended to shame China,” commentator Ji Shiping wrote in an editorial carried by the Xinhua news agency.
Mr Liu is serving an 11-year sentence for co-authoring the Charter ’08 appeal for political reform, the fourth time he has been jailed since 1989.
The Chinese authorities have launched a propaganda campaign against Mr Liu and put his wife, Liu Xia, and dozens of his friends and sympathisers under house arrest or tight surveillance.
Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said attendance would be viewed as a sign of disrespect for China. “We hope those countries that have received the invitation can tell right from wrong, uphold justice,” she said.
In a commentary titled “How long will jeers from the West last?” the Global Times newspaper accused the West of conspiring against China. “The West has shown great creativity in conspiring against China. With its ideology remaining dominant at present, the West has not ceased harassing China with all kinds of tricks like the Nobel Peace Prize.”
Human rights group Amnesty International said members of Norway’s Chinese community were being pressured by Chinese diplomats to attend anti-Nobel protests planned for today, and had been threatened with retaliation if they failed to appear.
Besides China, about 18 other countries – most of them authoritarian states with close economic links to China – have declined an invitation from the Nobel committee to attend.
Amnesty repeated its call for Liu Xiaobo to be released. “The Chinese government should be celebrating this global recognition of a Chinese writer and activist,” Salil Shetty, its secretary general, said. “Instead, the government’s very public tantrum has generated even more critical attention inside and outside China and, ironically, emphasized the significance of Liu Xiaobo’s message of respect for human rights.”
In Washington, state department spokesman PJ Crowley reaffirmed US support for the award.
“We think there absolutely should be a ceremony. We think there absolutely should be recognition. We think that Mr Liu and his wife should be there to be able to receive the award.”
Meanwhile, a Chinese group awarded the Confucius prize, its own hastily created version of the Nobel Peace Prize, yesterday to former Taiwanese vice-president Lien Chan, in Beijing. Mr Lien, the honorary chairman of Taiwan’s Nationalist Party, beat Nelson Mandela and Bill Gates among others to win the award, which honours his efforts at building peace between the mainland and Taiwan. Mr Lien’s office in Taipei said he had no plans to travel to Beijing because he knew nothing about the award.