Chinese Dissident Wins Nobel Peace Prize

[Sridhar]

China the nervous dragon

Pramit Pal Chaudhuri and Reshma Patil,
Email Author
New Delhi/Beijing, October 11, 2010
First Published: 23:14 IST(11/10/2010)
Last Updated: 09:21 IST(12/10/2010)









A pro-democracy protester wearing a mask of jailed Chinese democracy activist Liu Xiaobo attends a...
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A day after jailed writer Liu Xiaobo won the Nobel Peace Prize, Beijing police prevented lawyer Teng Biao from attending a celebration dinner. Three of his friends were detained for eight days. Some activists were ordered out of the capital to suppress news of the Nobel from reaching the ordinary Chinese.
"Some lawyers are under house arrest," said Teng.
China may be the dragon economy, but it acted like a startled rabbit when a mild-mannered Chinese dissident won a Nobel for two decades of campaigning for fundamental freedom.
"China seems very powerful but it's very vulnerable," said Teng, a rights lawyer since 2003. He sees no loosening of Beijing's grip on dissidents and protestors.
"After the Nobel, the government's control on civil society will be tighter. If the government doesn't control information about the Nobel ... they are very afraid that ordinary people will be encouraged to do the same (as Liu)."
Beijing's dissident phobia can be mystifying. Liu is a pacifist, famously smashing the gun of an armed worker who offered to fight alongside pro-democracy students in Tiananmen Square in 1989. Other dissidents, such as exiled scientist Fang Lizhi, think he's too soft and petitioned against him winning the Nobel.
Says sinologist Richard Rigby of Australian National University, "Liu, like most dissidents, is a great patriot."
And, he adds, "Most people pay little attention to what he says anyway."
Beijing barely differentiates between loyalists who want a cleaner party and man-the-barricade types. The source of this paranoia is a deep Chinese awareness of their country's bloody history. As scholar James Hsiung points out, political legitimacy in China is earned by claiming to rule through a "correct ideology". If the ideology is questioned, so is the basis of the regime's right to rule.
Dissidents don't matter as individuals, wrote Ian Buruma in Bad Elements, a book on Chinese rebels, "but their ideas are seen, quite correctly, as a direct challenge to the legitimacy of the one-party state."
Today's Chinese Communist Party offers this deal to its people: we make you rich and China powerful, in return you don't demand political rights. When this exchange is questioned, the foundations of the state are shaken.
Yet the party rhetorically accepts it must one day embrace the "Fifth Modernisation" – democracy. Premier Wen Jiabao has spoken of the need for democratic reforms for four years. Even President Hu Jintao has endorsed intra-party elections at local and provincial levels. But Beijing finds it hard to bite the ballot for four reasons.

Fear of chaos
The Chinese often question if they are ready for political freedom, whether this would not open the door to
anarchy.
A three-year-old report, said to be Hu's blueprint, warned that when a nation's economy and polity were still developing, "one-sided emphasis on freedom of speech could potentially create chaos in public opinion".
Beijing hardliners point to the tragic and violent conclusions of reform movements going back to the founding of the Chinese republic in 1949. Moscow opened the door, they note, and the Soviet collapse followed.
"The Chinese state views dissidents through the lens of 1989, as foreign agents who want to bring instability to China," said China analyst Bruce Gilley.
Fear of the foreign
Beijing also sees a sinister foreign hand in "Western" imports like democracy.
"(Our) government and (the) people have the right to refuse to accept the Western demand that China shall have a Western-style democracy...If we borrow some model it will lead to disaster," said Shi Yinhong of the Centre on American Studies, Renmin University. He admitted the party was 'too conservative' in approaching political reform – but insisted reform must be defined with Chinese characteristics. China Daily editorialised on Monday that the Nobel might be about "a Western plot to contain a rising China".
Fear of the people
By most accounts, dissidents don't have much popular support. But the party still fears they could spark something. China, after all, is a history marked by revolution.
"China's leaders know that for all their economic accomplishments, there is widespread discontent over issues such as corruption," said Jeffrey Wasserstrom, a specialist on Chinese protests.
"This leads them to alternate between seeming supremely confident and quite insecure."
Wasserstrom and Gilley note that Liu's democracy manifesto was inspired by anti-Soviet playwright Vaclav Havel, who later became Czech president.
"Havel and collaborators once seemed as powerless as Liu, yet they ended up, miraculously, being part of transitions to post-Communist times in those countries," Wasserstrom says.
The Nobel is unlikely to impact the way Beijing does things. But it highlights the contradiction of an economic colossus standing on feet of political clay.
"Liu may speak softly but he carries a big world-historical stick," said Gilley. This is why the dark-suited men of the world's most powerful political party fear him, and a lawyer in Beijing can't step out for dinner without the police following him.




China the nervous dragon - Hindustan Times

 

[Ray]

I think it is not fair to state that China acted as a 'startled rabbit'.

They have treated the whole issue with withering anger.

It is important to understand that the Chinese have their own idea of freedom, which does not coincide with the international standards, but then, that is their way of life. If their citizens have no complaints, then so be it.

The Chinese like an orderly way of life with predictable actions and results. Therefore, deviations are not appreciated.

Of course, that does not mean that the international community should not judge China by the standards the international community has.

 

[amoy]

to an extent I agree India has a far greater tolerance for dissidence. Or in other words more individual freedom in many fields.

clearly Liu shall not be jailed despite all his 'radical' views, which are anyway at people's discretion

 

[nimo_cn]

Please provide some references to back up your hitherto unsupported claim that Liu Xiaobo is pro-colonialist.

We have provided proof to you before, he said "China need to be colonized for 300 hundreds years" when he was interviewed by a HK media which i believe was named Liberation Monthly in 1988. The interview was conducted in Chinese, and the script is available on internet. If you are that interested, Google "中国 殖民 三百年".

Off topic, this just proves the information imbalance someone have mentioned before, especially when we are talking about China issues.
Liu's pro-colonialism remarks, as well as his negative comments on China and Chinese culture, are never known to you due to your lack of Chinese skills. All the materials you have read from your sources had be sanitized and depict Liu as an pure freedom fighter, and you accept it without any verification. Even after we have pointed out his true face, it still can not stop you from defending him blindly.

From my perspective, none of Liu Xiaobo's demands reiterated and quoted by me have anything to do with supporting colonialism.

He will be dumb to make demand to Chinese government for clonialism. "China need to be colonized for 300 years", what kind of people will say something like that if he is planning to fight for freedom for Chinese?

Well, maybe it is because the Chinese element neutralizes the effect of that sentence. How does "India needs to be colonized for 300 years" sound to you? Are you gonna to heed someone's preach over freedom after he made that comment. No offence to India and Indian people, i am only making an analogy.

If he is just person who only advocate for freedom, i will admire him. But the fact is, he is a true pro-colonialist and a fake freedom fighter.

Do you know someone who happens to be both freedom fighter and pro-colonialist? Freedom and colonialism are two totally contradictory things.
If people got colonized, how could freedom be available? Who the hell will promote colonialism if he is really fighting for freedom?
How could that be possible for a person to embody colonialism and freedom at the same time?

Any sensible person can notice the obvious contradiction in Liu's so called freedom fighting career and his actual colonialism promoting trick.
The only reasonable explanation to that contradication is that he is a hypocrite.

As i have said, if he is a true freedom fighter, or just a CCP hater, i have no problem. However, the fact is he is essentially anti-China and anti-Chinese.

How could a person who hates Chinese and China do anything good to Chinese people?

 

[Tshering22]

CHina has over 20 neighbours and 7 of 20+ are "sour neighbours", according to your statement.

India has only 8 neighours (including Sikkim annexed by India), only one (Bhutan) has a good relation with India. the others are all "sour neighbours" against India.

Does it really take so much effort for you to understand that Sikkim voluntarily acceded to India? I am a Sikkimese and I think I would know it well enough. Another factor, unlike limited access to Tibet for us and non-Chinese, you could take a tourist visa and come to Sikkim to see what's going on and talk to people yourself. You won't find a single person regretting the accession to India. Everywhere BRUTE FORCE isn't necessary to ask people to become one with you, you know. In fact, Soviet elites were so impressed with Sardar Patel (who founded the Union's integrity and unity) and asked the GOI at that time as to how we managed to get all states to accept to form a union without the use of unilateral military force.

Why? Because this is not the first time as I said in my earlier posts that we've become a part of India. Numerous empires of our country has had Sikkim as either tributary state or a part of the empire itself.

PS: the guy you see in my display is a famous actor of 70s & 80s in our film industry. He's a proud Sikkimese and a proud Indian.

 

[dove]

OT, but I was planning to visit sikkim this year, had to postpone for next. I have heard its hauntingly beautiful, esp towards the border side.

 

[ajtr]

Nobel committee crosses China's red line ​

By Trefor Moss

China's leaders are taking fire from all sides, and their damage control says a great deal about what they can and cannot tolerate.

First is the issue of the appreciation of China's currency. Europe has added stereo to American complaints that the undervalued yuan is harming Western jobs and prosperity, while the idea that China has loaded the economic deck has become the cause celebre of the US mid-term elections.

Secondly, Japan and Vietnam, which have both just clashed with China over disputed maritime territories, have criticized Beijing's heavy-handedness and alleged double standards. And thirdly, the Nobel Prize Committee conducted a moral and political character



assassination of China's leaders by handing its peace prize to Liu Xiaobo, a man Beijing has locked up for questioning the Communist Party's right to rule.

Beijing's response to this string of challenges to its political, economic and territorial sovereignty has been nuanced and varied. There are red lines which foreign states, so far as Beijing is concerned, ought not to cross; but where those lines are depends on the particular aspect of Chinese power that is under scrutiny.

The issue of yuan appreciation is highly significant in the context of the world's recovery from the brink of economic collapse. As such, the highly confrontational approach being adopted by politicians in the US - whose economic recovery has been far shakier than China's - is risky, and potentially counterproductive.

The Chinese may indeed be currency manipulators, but they will not be manipulated: they have not put their "century of shame and humiliation" behind them, as they see it, only to be told by foreigners what to do with their money.

Americans understandably want to see a stronger yuan; the danger is that by calling for it too aggressively they will goad Beijing into abandoning the currency revaluation so as not to be accused domestically of capitulating to foreign extraterritoriality.

However, Beijing's reaction to the hail of American political scorn is likely to be far more measured. "A consensus has slowly been reached among Chinese government departments that it's in China's interests to allow for a gradual and moderate appreciation," explains Jian Chang, an economist at Barclays Capital.

"The domestic economic-growth outlook is the key factor in determining the rate of appreciation, not foreign pressure." According to Chang, a slow strengthening of around 5% against the dollar a year is now a policy objective for Beijing, which is keen to stimulate domestic demand and start transitioning away from an export economy. Extreme foreign provocation could force a rethink but the imbroglio over the value of the yuan has not yet reached that level, she suggests.

Yiyi Lu, a research fellow at the University of Nottingham's China Policy Institute, agrees that the Chinese impulse to push back against foreign pressure, though rooted in history, will not be allowed to prevent the strengthening of the yuan, so long as Beijing sees such action as being in China's own interests.

"China appreciates much more now that nobody in the US, including the president, can control what different politicians might be saying," she says. "Whether the pressure from the West is public or private, or unilateral or multilateral, China will consider only its own analysis of the economy," she argues. The tub-thumping of US vote-seekers might be annoying, but it will not dictate policy.

China has a relatively high threshold for foreign criticism insofar as it relates to economic issues. Monetary policy is regarded as a matter of sovereignty, but the interconnectedness of the global economy means that other countries will inevitably have a stake in China's monetary decisions. As a result, "China has become much more open to this form of criticism," says Lu.

Beijing's blood boils at far lower temperatures, however, when other, more sensitive issues come up for discussion. Foreign criticism on territorial sovereignty and challenges to China's political order remain taboo. China has been accused of double standards in its territorial disputes with Japan and Vietnam, having objected to Japan's detention of a Chinese national only to arrest several Vietnamese citizens under similar circumstances just days later. But in one way, China was very consistent: it offered no leeway whatsoever to either territorial opponent, irrespective of the contrasting roles which China occupied in the two confrontations.

China's reaction to Liu's Nobel Prize was the least nuanced, and the most visceral, of the three episodes. It was the event most outside China's control and with the least opportunity for retaliation against the perceived aggressors, in this case "five individuals from a small nation on the northern periphery of Europe," as the Nobel Prize Committee members describe themselves.

The Chinese government was able to cancel official meetings with Norway's fisheries minister, who happened to be in Beijing. However, as the minister pointed out, the Norwegian government has no role in the prize winners' selection - a fact that made Beijing's response appear more peevish than measured.

The height of Beijing's dudgeon over the recipient of this year's Nobel Prize demonstrates a relative lack of confidence on this issue of criticism of China's political system. When it comes to yuan revaluation, China is highly confident: it is moving roughly in the direction that its detractors want, and is too important to the world economy for America to attack in any meaningful way.

On the issue of disputed territories, it is also confident: it can stand up to the likes of Vietnam and Japan both militarily and diplomatically, and it feels in the right. But on the issue of democracy and the detention of activists it appears less secure. When its tormentors are foreign, non-state actors who wield tremendous power in the symbolism of their declarations, China's leaders face the frustrating realization that their expanding influence still has its limits.

Trefor Moss is a freelance journalist who covers Asian politics, in particular defense, security and economic issues. He is a former Asia-Pacific Editor of Jane's Defense Weekly.

(Copyright 2010 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

 

[Iamanidiot]

to an extent I agree India has a far greater tolerance for dissidence. Or in other words more individual freedom in many fields.

clearly Liu shall not be jailed despite all his 'radical' views, which are anyway at people's discretion

We indians are like slow setting concrete.You guys are like tightly compacted sand

 

[Iamanidiot]

From what I understood from all this ruckus .The CCP as a whole are a bunch of bluffers and calling their actions bluff is the best thing .There main aim is to play to the domestic audience but when you see through there antic they like to avoid major crises.Any crisis which doesnot end on their terms will make them loose their power.I see China as a whole is quite fragile a nation it does not have the ability to take hits the way india or US can take....Most of the rime they avoid to take hits

 

[SHASH2K2]

Former Communist Officials in China Demand Media Freedom

BEIJING — A group of retired Communist Party officials and intellectuals issued an unusually blunt demand on Tuesday for total media freedom in China, stating that the current regime of censorship and government control of the press violates China's constitution and debases the government's claim to represent its citizens.

The document's 20 signers, including academics and many former executives of China's government-controlled press, have no public influence on the nation's ruling coalition of Communist leaders. Some of them have issued other public demands for reform in past years, to no effect.

Still, the bluntness of their message — and its timing, coming days after the jailed intellectual Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize — signaled that not all in the ruling establishment are content with the steadily tightening control over expression in the final years of President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao's leadership.

The letter's language was notable for including an undisguised attack on the legality of censorship by the party's Central Propaganda Department, which ultimately controls much of what is published, broadcast or posted on the Internet here.

"This is an invisible black hand," the signers wrote of the department. "For their own reasons, they violate our Constitution, often ordering by telephone that the works of such and such a person cannot be published, or that such and such an event cannot be reported in the media. The officials who make the call do not leave their names, and the secrecy of the agents is protected, but you must heed their phone instructions."

The "core demand," the writers stated, was that China's rubber-stamp legislature, the National People's Congress, dismantle censorship procedures "in favor of a system of legal responsibility" for items that are freely published.

Some experts said that the demands, which were quickly squelched by censors after being posted on the Internet, were unlikely to have a serious impact on government policies.

"To the extent that people will learn about this letter, it resonates, because it shows there are different sensibilities within the party," Nicholas Bequelin, a Hong Kong-based researcher for the advocacy group Human Rights Watch, said in an interview. "But it does not, on the political level, alter the balance."

 

[pmaitra]

What about Tibet, the most hostile neighbour of China ? Sooner or later they are going to overthrow you. You know that don't you ? Taiwan is also going to help them.

Taiwan is probably not going to help the Tibetans. They also have territorial claims somewhat similar to the current PRC regime. Both the regimes believe that Sovereignty over Tibet is a natural progression from Suzerainty over Tibet (from a historical perspective).

 

[Ray]

As per the map someone posted, it appears that Taiwan has greater claims over neighbouring territory than the Communist China.

 

[SHASH2K2]

Pak mentally disturbed by nobel for Liu Xiaobo

Infact They should be happy as hafeez saeed and mullah omar may bring some noble prizes for them.

 

[amoy]

it appears that Taiwan has greater claims over neighbouring territory than the Communist China

most significantly ROC Taiwan still claims (on the map) Outer Mongolia, for which a referendum was agreed in Yalta (1945?) to be held. Stalin told the envoy of Chiang Kai-shek (his son - an ex communist party member of Soviet Union) either to let go Outer Mongolia, or get ready to fight. It was de facto under control of Red Army since collapse of Qing Dynasty.


there're grains of salt in Liu's points - eye-catching remarks like 300-years of colonization aside, actually Liu is trying to promulgate a total westernization of China, politically, culturally and economically while to a degree discarding China's outmoded 'traditons'. People may question his motive (as he' s funded by a US 'NGO'?), or its practicality, but the goal itself sounds 'fantastic'.

We indians are like slow setting concrete.You guys are like tightly compacted sand

typical of Indian styled self confidence, always impressive

unlike yours Dr Sun Yat-Sen called Chinese ' a heap of loose sand' as Chinese were more 'individualistic' or short of 'discipline' or strong 'nationalism' in his eyes.

 

[pmaitra]

unlike yours Dr Sun Yat-Sen called Chinese ' a heap of loose sand' as Chinese were more 'individualistic' or short of 'discipline' or strong 'nationalism' in his eyes.

If you look at history, China was under foreign rule for a long time and whatever the local Chinese regime was, it wither had to collaborate with the Europeans or stay away from the ports. There was also the opium trade, the Boxer Revolution and numerous attempts by Japan to take over European controlled areas in Japan, so that if Hitler defeated the USSR, got hold of Soviet Caucasian oil and the Trans Siberian Railway, it would be easy to tranport good and raw materials for the war (WW2).

It was indeed a situation of despair and one would typically understand that this misfortune can befall any nation if they are not united.

Today, China is strong because of this unity, whether it is spontaneous or state enforced. Chine, it's human rights records notwithstanding, must be commended for that.

 

[Iamanidiot]

most significantly ROC Taiwan still claims (on the map) Outer Mongolia, for which a referendum was agreed in Yalta (1945?) to be held. Stalin told the envoy of Chiang Kai-shek (his son - an ex communist party member of Soviet Union) either to let go Outer Mongolia, or get ready to fight. It was de facto under control of Red Army since collapse of Qing Dynasty.


there're grains of salt in Liu's points - eye-catching remarks like 300-years of colonization aside, actually Liu is trying to promulgate a total westernization of China, politically, culturally and economically while to a degree discarding China's outmoded 'traditons'. People may question his motive (as he' s funded by a US 'NGO'?), or its practicality, but the goal itself sounds 'fantastic'.


typical of Indian styled self confidence, always impressive

unlike yours Dr Sun Yat-Sen called Chinese ' a heap of loose sand' as Chinese were more 'individualistic' or short of 'discipline' or strong 'nationalism' in his eyes.

Are Indians that self confident.?OHimalaya can you define an indian mindset for me?Some thing that still eludes me

 

[ajtr]

China pressures European governments over Nobel peace prize​

China is pressuring European governments to avoid the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony for imprisoned democracy activist Liu Xiaobo and not make any statements in support of him, several diplomats said on Thursday.

The Chinese Embassy in Oslo has sent official letters to a number of European embassies in the Norwegian capital asking them not to attend the December 10 ceremony, two Western diplomats said.

Sweden and Finland confirmed their embassies in Oslo had received such a letter, but officials could not immediately provide details. The ambassadors of Denmark and the Netherlands declined to comment on the letter but said they would attend the ceremony.

According to one of the diplomats who said he has seen the letter, China cited its repeated position that Liu is a criminal for his advocacy of widespread political reforms and called the prize an interference in China's internal affairs.

The letter also urged embassies not to issue any public statements in support of Liu on the day of the ceremony, he said.

Liu, a writer and outspoken government critic, is serving an 11—year prison term for inciting subversion with Charter 08, a bold call for sweeping political reforms that he co—authored. His wife has been under house arrest since the award was announced in October.

Numerous world leaders, including President Barack Obama, as well as international rights groups have called for Liu's release. That has enraged China, which has been waging a campaign through state media to criticize both Liu and the prize.

In Beijing in the past couple of weeks, diplomats from several countries have been called into meetings with Chinese officials, who made similar requests to the letters issued to the embassies in Oslo, said the first Western diplomat.

"They have been quietly getting in touch, inviting people to small meetings and passing the message that way," the diplomat said.

A second Western diplomat confirmed the letter.

Another diplomat from a European country said his country had not been asked to avoid the event, but he was aware of several other nations that had been approached.

"There is pressure on this," he said.

All three diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

Geir Lundestad, the secretary of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, declined to comment on the Chinese letter, but said it's up to the ambassadors to decide whether to attend the ceremony at Oslo's City Hall.

He said more than 1,000 invitations had been sent out, including to all ambassadors to Norway. Even the Chinese ambassador received an invitation, but returned it without answering, Mr. Lundestad said.

"All mail we have sent to the Chinese Embassy in Oslo has been returned unopened," he said.

It's unclear who will accept the prize on Liu's behalf, but "people close to the laureate" have conveyed his wish that a children's choir perform at the ceremony, Mr. Lundestad said. Arrangements were being made for that, he added.

On Thursday, China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei refused to confirm or deny that China had sent the letters.

"Our opposition to the awarding of the peace prize to Liu Xiaobo is clear. We oppose anyone making an issue out of this," Mr. Hong told a regularly scheduled news conference.

The request comes at a sensitive time for several European countries in their dealings with China, which is using its economic clout more.

President Hu Jintao is in France this week, where reports say a deal on the sale of Airbus jets could be signed, while next week British Prime Minister David Cameron visits Beijing hoping to strengthen business ties after his government last month outlined the sharpest cuts to public spending since World War II.

"We are fully aware of Chinese authorities' views on the Nobel Peace Prize announcement, but I will attend the ceremony," Danish Ambassador to Norway Hugo Oestergaard—Andersen said.

Dutch Ambassador Richard van Rijssen said he, too, would accept the invitation.

In addition to foreign diplomats, Norway's royal family and representatives of the Norwegian government and Parliament typically attend the annual ceremony, which is held on the anniversary of prize founder Alfred Nobel's death in 1896.

"From the Norwegian side, there are no scheduled changes from the normal procedures for participation at the ceremony," said Norwegian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bjoern Svenungsen.

Dozens of Chinese activists and luminaries had been invited by Liu's wife to attend the Nobel award ceremony on her behalf because she believed mainland authorities were unlikely to allow her to pick up the prize.

 

[ajtr]

China's threats put peace prize award at risk​

Nobel ceremony may be cancelled, for the first time in 106 years, after China threatens diplomats in row over jailed dissident

By Paul Vallely
For the first time in the history of the Nobel Peace Prize the award may not be handed out this year after a strenuous campaign by the Chinese government to stop one of its citizens, the jailed human rights campaigner Liu Xiaobo, receiving the honour.

Under Nobel Prize rules, the 10 million kronor (£880,000) award can only be collected by the laureate or a close family member.

The government in Beijing placed Mr Liu's wife under house arrest as soon as the award was announced last month and his two brothers are under surveillance. One of them, Liu Xiaoxuan, who had said he would represent his brother at the Oslo ceremony, sent a brief text message last night to the outside world, saying: "I am being monitored, cannot take interviews, can only keep silent."

The Chinese government has also stepped up its diplomatic efforts to prevent the ceremony going ahead. Yesterday, in a highly unusual move, five countries declared they would not be sending ambassadors to the ceremony. Russia, Kazakhstan, Cuba, Morocco and Iraq are all joining with China in an unprecedented boycott.

Ambassadors from 16 other countries have yet to reply to the standard Nobel invitation, which has been accepted by 36 nations.

Earlier this month China wrote to all diplomats in the Norwegian capital pressuring them not to attend the ceremony. They received letters warning there would be "consequences" if their governments showed support for Liu Xiaobo – whom Beijing says is a "criminal".

There has never before been such a furious anti-Nobel campaign, according to the secretary of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Geir Lundestad. "I don't know of any example where a country has so actively and directly tried to have ambassadors stay away from a Nobel ceremony," he said.

The pageant itself is still scheduled to be held before around 1,000 guests in Oslo City Hall on 10 December. There will be a speech by the chairman of the peace committee, after which text messages from the winner will be read out by the Norwegian actress Liv Ullmann. There will also be music from a children's choir requested by Mr Liu, who is serving an 11-year sentence in a Chinese jail for "subversion" after co-authoring a Charter calling for reforms to China's one-party political system.

But the handover of the Nobel gold medal, diploma and prize money will not happen – for the first time in the history of the prize.

Recipients of the honour have been absent in the past. The most recent was the Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who was released from house arrest last week. When she was named the Nobel laureate in 1991, her son Alexander Aris gave the acceptance speech on her behalf.

During the Cold War the Polish labour leader Lech Walesa was not allowed out to collect the honour, but his wife was permitted to travel to Oslo to accept it on behalf of her husband in 1983. When the Russian physicist Andrei D Sakharov won it in 1975 the Soviet authorities gave permission for his wife, too, to collect the prize.

Even in 1936, when the winner, Count Carl von Ossietzky, a German journalist who had been held in Nazi concentration camps, was refused a passport to travel to Oslo, the prize money, if not the award itself, was collected by his lawyer – who was later jailed for embezzling it.

The Chinese crackdown is more draconian than has ever been demonstrated by any government when a dissident has been awarded the prize.

Most ambassadors have remained silent on their reason for declining. But a spokesman for the Russian embassy in Oslo, Vladimjir Isupov, said yesterday: "It is not politically motivated and we do not feel we are pressured by China." The Russian ambassador would not be in Norway at the time of the ceremony, he said.

But few observers believe that. This year's laureate, Liu Xiaobo, has been an annoyance to the Chinese Communist Party through long years as a political activist. The 54-year-old university professor first came to international attention in 1989 when he returned from the United States to Beijing to take part in the pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square. After they were bloodily suppressed he was sent to prison for nearly two years. In 1996 he was jailed again and sent to a "re-education" labour camp for three years, where he married another activist, Liu Xia. Since then he has continued to speak out on a range of taboo subjects, including China's treatment of Tibetans.

His current jail term for "inciting subversion of state power" came after he helped write Charter 08, a manifesto calling for political change in China. The document – published on the 60th anniversary of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights in December 2008 – demanded a new constitution in China, an independent judiciary and freedom of expression.

Two days before it was due to be published Mr Liu was arrested by police in a late-night raid on his home.

In making the award the Norwegian Nobel Committee commended his "long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China". The country had made rapid economic progress in recent decades, it said, and lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. But now it needed to make political progress too, in line with Article 35 of its own constitution, which says that "citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration".

Such public criticism has outraged the government in Beijing.

Some believe that foreign pressure on China is counter-productive. Before Mr Liu's last trial the United States government called on Beijing to release him "immediately and to respect the rights of all Chinese citizens to peacefully express their political views". The Chinese government responded by holding a one-day trial – on Christmas Day when it assumed most people in the West would be busy with other matters.

So determined has it been that Mr Liu's award should not be collected that it has imposed travel bans on all prominent human rights activists, for fear that they might turn up in Oslo to make a speech accepting the prize for Mr Liu. Among them is Mr Liu's lawyer Mo Shaoping, who has been banned from attending a legal conference in London.

Mr Liu's wife posted on the internet a list of 143 Chinese activists, academics and celebrities she wanted to invite to the award ceremony. None appear to have been allowed out of the country.

Meanwhile Liu Xiaobo languishes in prison. Once a month his wife visits him for an hour watched over by two guards and a security camera. "Mentally and physically he's fine," she said after one recent visit. "He runs for an hour each day, he reads and he writes me letters."

As to when the formal presentation might finally be made, the organisers were noncommittal yesterday. It will be delayed indefinitely, they said, "until we have the right people here".

 

[Ray]

How will you justify nobel peace prize to Obama and Yasser Arafat.I think kasab too deserve nobel peace prize by the standards of of above two example.

I just stumbled on this post!

Kasab should get it?

Why are you nominating him?

Do you sincerely feel that Kasab has done something super?

Have you no compassion in your heart for the poor innocents killed?

Or are you a fanboy of Fundamental terrorism and a part of the ISI sleeper cell in India, taking that you are posting from Hyderabad India!!

I sure hope that you are being watched by the Indian Intelligence and you will soon be booked.

I assure you, I won't recommend you for any prize and instead will rejoice when you meet your Fate!

 

[Ray]

Liu Xiaobo's Nobel peace prize may not be given out at December ceremony

Under Nobel rules, the award can only be collected by the laureate or close family. Liu cannot attend because he is serving an 11-year sentence for subversion after co-authoring an appeal calling for reforms to China's one-party political system. His wife, Liu Xia, has been under house arrest and subject to police escort since the award was announced last month.

Friends say all of Liu's closest family members are under tight police surveillance aimed at preventing them from attending the ceremony.

China has written to foreign ministries and embassies urging diplomats to stay away from the ceremony in Oslo and warning of "consequences" for those who support the pro-democracy activist.

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Can't Attend