China Scores Another “Own-Goal”

The Polemicist

by Michael House

LONDON, England—(Weekly Hubris)—1/3/11—There is a long history of tyrannical regimes refusing to allow winners of the Nobel Peace Prize to collect their awards. The most recent examples are Andrei Sakharov (Russia) in 1975 and Aung San Suu Chi (Burma) in 1991. In 1936, the German pacifist, Carl von Ossietsky, was awarded the prize, but was unable to collect it, being in a Nazi concentration camp. The spiritual successors of the Nazis, the Chinese Communist Party, have just replicated that event.

Liu Xiaobo is a 54-year-old writer and critic. In 2008, he was the co-author, with another brave Chinese scholar, Zhang Zuhua, of Charter 08, a bold appeal for reform of the system of government in China. Zhang, currently under house arrest in his Peking flat, told a newspaper that “our aim is to use peaceful means to improve human rights, to promote democracy and to create a more civilised state where people are not oppressed.” As if to seek to demonstrate the need for such aims, the Chinese authorities arrested Liu and, after the normal show trial before a kangaroo court, he was sentenced to eleven years in prison for “incitement to subversion.”

In 2010, Liu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The Chinese reaction was predictably hysterical. There were fierce denunciations of the Nobel Committee for infringing upon Chinese sovereignty and honoring a “criminal.” There were cyber-attacks on its website. Travel restrictions were placed on Liu’s wife and 140 supporters she had invited to attend the presentation ceremony. Sakharov’s wife and Suu Kyi’s son were able to collect the prize in 1975 and 1991. But no one could collect Liu’s prize.

This was the first time there had been no actual presentation since 1936, when Hitler took similar steps.

Determined to make themselves look even more absurd, the Chinese set up a rival award—the Confucius peace prize. It was to be awarded the day before the Nobel ceremony to one Lien Chan, a former Taiwanese vice president, for building a “bridge of peace between the mainland and Taiwan.” In other words, for supporting his country’s giving up its independence and becoming part of the Chinese gulag. Another nominee was the young man pretending to be the Panchen Lama—the second highest monk in Tibetan Buddhism—after the Chinese kidnapped the real Panchen Lama, who is either dead, or in detention in Peking (nobody knows for certain). The “prize” is worth £9,500, compared with £1 million for the Nobel.

The main effort of the Chinese government was diplomatic. States invited to send representatives to the ceremony were threatened or bribed to refuse the invitation. No pressure, of course was required to make states such as ex-KGB thug Putin’s kleptocratic dictatorship, Russia, refuse to go. The award of the prize to a human rights activist was not welcomed by such nations.

Eighteen invited countries refused to attend. The role of honor is as follows:

1. Cuba: China’s second largest trade partner, with an appalling record of suppressing political dissent.
2. Colombia: China has invested $13.9 in the country in the past decade. Irregular private armies operate with impunity.
3. Venezuela: China has just agreed to a loan of $20 billion to develop its oil fields. A socialist government, elected with what appeared to be an excellent program of redistribution, becomes more authoritarian by the day.
4. Morocco: a monarchical dictatorship with a dreadful human rights record.
5. Ukraine: China is about to invest $4 billion in rail infrastructure. Tortures and ill-treats prisoners.
6. Serbia: refuses to recognize the independence of Kosovo, wants Chinese support, therefore shows solidarity with the Chinese over Tibet. Ill-treats minorities, especially Albanians.
7. Tunisia: supporter of China. Does not want its own human rights record under the spotlight. Cracks down on peaceful dissent using the pretexts of terrorism and religious extremism.
8. Egypt: dictatorship which holds sham elections. Poor human rights record.
9. Sudan: 50 percent of exports go to China. Country supplies 30 percent of China’s oil needs. Bad record of ethnic cleansing.
10. Iraq: Bilateral trade deals worth $3.8 billion. Oppressive Islamic state.
11. Saudi Arabia: $60 billion trading partner. Against stiff competition, perhaps the worst human rights record in the Arab world.
12. Kazakhstan: Chinese to invest $2.2 billion in gas pipelines. Leading human rights activist, Evgeny Zhovtis, sentenced to four years in jail after farcical trial.
13. Iran: $120 billion of Chinese investments in energy projects. On human rights, a close rival to Number 11, above.
14. Afghanistan: $3.5 billion invested by the Chinese in copper mines which are expected to produce royalties worth 45 percent of the state revenue. Limited human rights for men only.
15. Russia: see above. Investigative journalists and dissidents routinely murdered.
16. Pakistan: Tibet is Pakistan’s Kashmir. Secret service sponsors terrorism. Oppressive Islamic state.
17. Vietnam: close neighbor and major trading partner. Another communist dictatorship.
18. Philippines: military and police commit human rights violations with impunity. No known pressure from China.

China’s financial clout is such that many countries are afraid of offending it. The nation has $2.6 trillion of foreign exchange reserves and is not afraid to use them. To curry favor by joining the boycott was an easy and painless gesture. Similar tactics have been used by the Chinese to bully foreign leaders out of meeting the Dalai Lama. As China’s power and wealth and influence grow, the boycotting countries no doubt feel that history is on their side. But even the mightiest empires do not last forever.