Nobel Peace Prize 2010

The Norwegian Nobel Committee decided to give the Peace Prize this year to Liu Xiaobo 'for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China.' The Chinese government strongly objected to this. They have not only prevented Liu and his wife from attending the ceremony at Oslo on 10 December, but detained several hundred human rights activists in the country. If many educated and qualified youth have been thus alienated it would be an enormous waste of human resources to the country. The government say Liu is a criminal. In reality he is a political prisonor, a prisonor of conscience. Moreover they have not answered the charge by the Norwegian Committee that Liu's detention is in violation of Article 35 of the Chinese constitution providing for fundamental rights of the people.
The government may say that their socialism is one of Chinese pattern and the Western model of human rights does not necessarily apply. For a long time China has judged visiting foreign dignitaries by their attitude towards Tibet, Taiwan and human rights. Innumerable legitimate demands for human rights have been suppressed in the name of this kind of specificity in China or elsewhere. After 9/11 fighting international terrorism was added as a convenient excuse for such suppression. About one third of the countries with an Embassy at Oslo have expressed their inability to attend the ceremony. One wonders if in so many countries similar suppression is going on.
What Liu and his associates have written down in "Charter 08", things like freedom as the core of the universal values, decentralization, independent legislature and judiciary, nationalization of the armed forces, sustainable development, a Federal republic, civic consciousness, are far from an agenda for toppling a powerful government. They feel suffocated. They want to breathe freely. They want to express themselves. And in doing so they are supported by millions of people, not in China alone. Economic growth does not automatically bring about democratization. It takes human effort. The examples of the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Indonesia have testified to this. China is now in the process, which is shown by the case of Liu Xiaobo. The Norwegian Committee is to be congratulated for taking a far-sighted and courageous decision.