Hot Spots
10/14/2010
China's Reaction to Peace Prize
I couldn’t help but post this editorial from China’s Global Times, a government mouthpiece, on the decision by the Nobel committee to award the peace prize to a Chinese dissident. China is increasingly feeling boxed in, as at the same time it is finding ways to lash out, such as in its initial response to the taking of a Chinese fishing vessel captain who purposefully rammed two Japanese patrol boats. I disagree with the following…it’s just important to know what the other side believes.
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Friday the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Liu Xiaobo, an incarcerated Chinese criminal.
The Nobel committee once again displayed its arrogance and prejudice against a country that has made the most remarkable economic and social progress in the past three decades.
The Nobel Peace Prize has been generally presented as a prestigious award in China, but many Chinese feel the peace prize is loaded with Western ideology.
Last century the prize was awarded several times to pro-West advocates in the former Soviet Union, including Mikhail Gorbachev, whose efforts directly led to the disintegration of the Soviet Union. The Western preference of the Nobel committee did not disappear with the end of the Cold War.
The committee continues to deny China’s development by making paranoid choices.
In 1989, the Dalai Lama, a separatist, won the prize. Liu Xiaobo, the new winner, wants to copy Western political systems in China.
There are many different perspectives to view these two people, but neither of the two are among those who made constructive contributions to China’s peace and growth in recent decades.
Other Chinese dissidents, such as Rebiya Kadeer and Hu Jia, were reportedly on the shortlist for the peace prize this year, which naturally generates animosity among many Chinese against the award.
They have reason to question whether the Nobel Peace Prize has been degraded to a political tool that serves an anti-China purpose. It seems that instead of peace and unity in China, the Nobel committee would like to see the country split by an ideological rift, or better yet, collapse like the Soviet Union.
Liu Xiaobo was sentenced to 11 years in jail by the Chinese government last year. Several countries tried to interfere in China’s domestic affairs. What the Nobel committee did Friday was a continuation of that act.
The controversy in the West over Liu Xiaobo’s sentence is not based on legal concerns. They are trying to impose Western values on China.
Obviously, the Nobel Peace Prize this year is meant to irritate China, but it will not succeed. On the contrary, the committee disgraced itself.
The award however makes it clearer that it is difficult for China to win applause from the West during China’s development, and China needs to be more determined and confident in choosing its own development path, which is different from Western approach.
The Nobel committee made an unwise choice, but it and the political force it represents cannot dictate China’s future growth.
China’s success story speaks louder than the Nobel Peace Prize.
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Brian Trumbore
