The way China is reacting to the Nobel Peace Prize being awarded to what can only be described as a political prisoner is absolutely amusing. All things aside, anger management counseling or therapy is in order.
Reading some of the reactions from China, and in particular the ones directed at Norway are classic out of control rage. The approach they are applying is that the Norwegian Government is somehow negligent by not interfering with the Nobel Prize selection. As a result China is punishing Norway for not acting like a dictator.
The clamp down on everyone and anyone even remotely associated with the recipient of the prize, is simply what you would expect from a kidnapper looking for ransom. Make it stop or we will keep your family locked up. The idea to employ punishment to people not related is simply seen as leverage and tends to dip rather low in the spectrum of human behavior. Connecting the Dots does not want to speculate too much but there are suggestions that the Chinese Government is trying to perhaps force Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo to reject the prize. It is also a bit of an oxymoron to suggest that a Chinese national should not be the winner of a Nobel Prize and suggests that Chinese people do not make the cut.
Needless to say This behavior will ultimately damage China far more that it realizes at the moment. The fact that the rest of the world sees the Nobel Prizes as free of politics and has very specific criteria/mandate for selecting the prize, China is simply acting in ways unbecoming of a government.
From the will of Alfred Nobel; “The said interest shall be divided into five equal parts, which shall be apportioned as follows: /- – -/ one part to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”
China’s behavior as a whole (The People) seem excited and happy about the prize, but are not able to display it publicly in China. Chinese people living outside of China have a very different view than the Chinese government. It seems the Nobel prize has awoken the ghosts of the 1989 Tiananmen Square democracy movement that left blood on the hands of the Chinese Government. The fact that the entire free world now seems united behind those that were killed or punished for seeking democracy is what is at the root of the Chinese Government’s anger. So to some extent it is a survival reaction thug style.
Quoting The Hindustan Times;
China decries Nobel; wife detained
The wife of Chinese dissident and Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo is under house arrest with her mobile phone communication cut-off. Outside her guarded compound, European diplomats were barred from meeting her to present a letter of congratulations as Beijing seethed over the international
acclaim for Liu.Clampdown continued on dissident supporters of Liu as Beijing expressed anger at the prize through media and diplomatic channels. The state-run China Daily said the prize was ‘part of a plot to contain China’.
Beijing, which had warned Norway that ties would suffer if Liu won the prize, cancelled a meeting scheduled for Wednesday between visiting Norwegian Fisheries Minister Lisbeth Berg-Hansen and her Chinese counterpart. Norway called this an “unnecessary reaction”.
Liu’s lawyer Shang Baojun, said that he had been unable to contact his wife Liu Xia. “I don’t have any direct news,” said Shang. “She’s probably at home with communications cut off, under surveillance. She’s called it house arrest.”
On Sunday, Liu Xia tweeted that she had been allowed to meet her husband in the prison. A dissident posted a Twitter message that Xiaobo had been in tears when he met her, and dedicated his Prize to those who died in the military crackdown on the 1989 pro-democracy protestors at Tiananmen Square.
Four United Nations human rights experts issued a statement on Monday, urging for the release of the 54-year-old literature professor who is serving an 11-year sentence. The Dalai Lama who had supported the nomination, said that the Chinese government must ‘build an open, transparent society’. (With Agency inputs)
