China says prize for dissident would be against Nobel aims
BEIJING |
BEIJING (Reuters) - Awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to a well-known Chinese dissident would run contrary to the principles of its founder, China's Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.
Czech dissident Vaclav Havel has called on the Nobel Peace Committee to award the prize to jailed Chinese human rights campaigner Liu Xiaobo.
But Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said that would send the wrong message.
"This person was sentenced to jail because he violated Chinese law," Jiang told a news briefing in Beijing.
"His actions are diametrically opposed to the aims of the Nobel prize. Mr. Nobel's behest was that the Nobel Peace Prize be awarded to somebody who promoted peace between peoples, promoted international friendship and disarmament."
Liu is serving an 11-year prison sentence for writings that called for multi-party democracy -- perceived threats to the Communist Party's monopoly on power.
The head of the Norwegian Nobel Institute said on Monday that a senior Chinese official told him that awarding the peace prize to Liu would affect relations between Oslo and Beijing.
Beijing was furious when Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, won the Peace Prize in 1989, the year of the Tiananmen Square crackdown by Chinese authorities on protesters.
China and Norway are now engaged in talks over a bilateral trade deal, which some say could serve as a blueprint for an agreement between the Asian superpower and the European Union.
Energy-rich Norway is also keen to export its offshore exploration know-how to China, with Norwegian oil firm Statoil announcing last month it aimed to look for shale gas in China.
Norway's Nobel committee is set to announce the winner of this year's peace prize in Oslo on October 8, capping a week of prizes given in Stockholm in the name of 19th century Swedish dynamite inventor Alfred Nobel.
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Ken Wills and Sugita Katyal)
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Hey china, why don’t you let them give the prize to whoever they want to give it to. It’s sad enough that you’ve jailed a potential Nobel Peace Prize candidate….don’t make the mistake of proving that he deserves it.
When people are hardly aware of his existence,
Not so good when people praise his government,
Less good when people stand in fear,
Worst, when people are contemptuous.
Fail to honor people, and they will fail to honor you.
But of a good leader, who speaks little,
When his work is done, his aim fulfilled,
The people say, ‘We did it ourselves.’”
~ Lao Tzu
So, it would seem that China is somewhere between the third and the fourth ways – they are feared, but themselves fear they will soon be regarded contemptuously by their own people. Hence, the lashing out against Nobel laureates.
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