China Facing the Nobel Prize

Beijing succeeded in convincing 18 countries to boycott dissident Liu Xiaobo’s peace prize award ceremony.

China obtained support to boycott the Nobel Peace Prize award ceremony for dissident Liu Xiaobo, who is completing an extraordinary 11-year sentence in prison for signing a manifesto asking for comprehensive democratic reforms in his country. Neither he nor his wife, who is under house arrest, could attend the ceremony.

Beijing reacted angrily to the announcement of the award, alleging that it “…contradicts its aims and is an obscenity against the peace prize.” The deputy minister of foreign affairs, Cui Tiankai, declared that the governments had to choose between challenging the Chinese judicial system and having responsible relations with China, threatening that “if they make the wrong choice, they have to bear the consequences.”

China has been able to convince 18 foreign embassies in Oslo to not be present. This is the weight of the Asian titan that should have been able to exercise a mix of political pressure and economic blackmail, as can be observed in the list of those absent. They are, above all, the usual suspects of what could be called the axis of authoritarianism: Russia, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Syria, which is to say countries with autocratic leaders, deficient or nonexistent democracy and that fear creating a precedent with their own eventual dissidents.

Under the minimum standard of a state with the rule of law, Liu has not committed the slightest offense. Barack Obama has defined him as “an eloquent and courageous spokesman for the advance of universal values through peaceful and nonviolent means.” It should be noted that the Nobel committee is composed of Norwegian politicians who, above suspicion, are named by the Nordic country’s parliament.

Liu shares his cell with five common criminals, and his wife can only see him one hour per month. The Chinese regime has made unimaginable economic progress, is the second largest economy in the world and has also reached undeniable political advances. The circumstances during Maoism and now are very different, but it continues as a one-party state where dissidence and opposition are not permitted. The economic progress has arrived without a substantial opening.

Democracy in China will not arrive tomorrow, although some of the country’s leaders seem concerned that it is inevitable in the long term. The system, as done with the protests for Tibet before the 2008 Olympics, has now skillfully played the nationalist card: The prize would be a trick by the eager West to stop the unbearable rise of China.