Nobel No-Shows for Award to Dissident Liu Reveal Rising Chinese Influence

[cowcommander]

Source: Bloomberg

At least 19 countries will be absent from today’s ceremony bestowing the Nobel Peace Prize on Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo in the wake of his government’s campaign to portray the award as a western effort to undermine its authority.

Those absent will include countries with unelected rulers such as Cuba and Saudi Arabia, Chinese neighbors Kazakhstan and Vietnam, and U.S. allies Colombia and Egypt. Their decision to skip the ceremony in Oslo comes as Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu derided the award as a “farce” bestowed by “clowns” in comments to reporters in Beijing on Dec. 7.

“Mr. Liu Xiaobo is far more deserving of this award than I was,” President Barack Obama said in a statement e-mailed to reporters. “I regret that Mr. Liu and his wife were denied the opportunity to attend the ceremony that Michelle and I attended last year.”

“We respect China’s extraordinary accomplishment in lifting millions out of poverty, and believe that human rights include the dignity that comes with freedom from want,” Obama said. “But Mr. Liu reminds us that human dignity also depends upon the advance of democracy, open society, and the rule of law.”


Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-09/nobel-no-shows-for-award-to-dissident-reveal-chinese-influence.html

[notadmblnd]

1. The President's quote is quite ironic

[sirthomas66]

17. Yeah. In light of what is going on now, I have to agree with you. Norway

will never live down that mistake.

[Mosaic]

2. Rule of law

Like prosecuting torture Mr. Obama?

< Matthew 7:5 >

"You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye."

[SkyDaddy7]

8. Rule of Law & you quote the Bible! LOL!

[Duppers]

18. The "rule of law" phrase caught my attention too

I do not know the poster who quoted the bible but I feel that he was doing so ONLY to remind our religious President of what a hypocrite he is being, in so many ways.

Besides, Liu broke Chinese law.

I think you owe the poster an apology.


(Btw, I'm an atheist, so I don't often offer to defend anyone quoting a bible verse, but this was an exception.)

[Bluenorthwest]

21. Seems fitting as the President quotes Bible to rationalize his

opposition to equality in civil rights for minorities he does not much care for. He says he has to be bigoted because he is not only a Christian, but also because straight people are-this is his verbiage-'sanctified by God', and others are not 'sanctified'.
So when a religious politician attacks others using Scripture he claims to follow, it is fitting and proper to quote back to him the Scriptures he seems to reject or ignore, while stomping his feet to demand that teh gay is not not Sacramental like his kind of Union. He says his sort are inherently better, and that God agrees with him.
So yeah, there are mountains of verses this hypocrite should be confronted with.

[DissedByBush]

3. Note the trend

The countries with the worst human rights abuses.

They have to stand together.

[bigworld]

4. The countries:

* China, Vietnam, Kazakhstan
* Russia
* Venezuela, Cuba
* Tunisia, Morocco, Sudan, Algeria
* Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Egypt
* Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka

[TexasObserver]

9. It's a Who's Who of human rights violators.

12 Islamic states and 4 communist states

There's a bunch of human rights disasters in state form.

Their appearing for such an award ceremony would be inconsistent with their treacherous human rights records.

[Duppers]

19. wow/ lol

Some of those countries are supposedly 'allies' of ours!

[Coventina]

5. China is a childish tyrant. Anyone who stands with China is contemptable. n/t

on edit: spelling

[saigon68]

6. Especially Mr One Termer

[SkyDaddy7]

7. Get use to it as China's influence around the world...

is not going to get smaller over the foreseeable future!

[Coventina]

10. And a grim future it will be. n/t

[Bragi]

11. Why doesn't China build/buy a U.S television network?

That would make so much sense for them. One of the major problems they and every other rising power has in dealing with the U.S is how ignorant and misinformed the American people are about almost everything within or outside their borders.

If were them, I'd build or buy a U.S network to start to push information to Americans about the world -- and about the U.S in the world.

Otherwise, Americans will continue to think they are number one in everything and no-one else matters.

[rpannier]

13. Because it would be a waste of cash

Countries like China and Russia already own English channels that present their side of world issues -- Americans won't watch.
But that's not unusual. If I sponsored a network that pushed how bad the Chinese government was and the problems their government creates and showed it China, I'd be off the air in a month because few would watch.

[Bragi]

15. It could be done correctly

I agree it would be a waste of it was the usual type of propaganda channel, but I think it would be possible to do it right and long term, two things the Chinese can be good at.

For example, they could buy/build a network located in the U.S and broadcasting into the U.S. Spend huge amounts on popular programming and news gathering. Generate as much ad revenue as possible, but pour money into it to build audiences. Then just make sure that certain key messages are getting out.

I don't see that as impossible. The reason U.S viewers don't watch Chinese and Russian propaganda channels is a) they have no way of receiving them, and b) the programming is usually awful.

The only exception here is al Jezeera, which is a high-quality news network but which has limited U.S distribution via satellite, and which is the object of constant ideological attacks from the U.S right.

[Ginto]

16. Exactly! I don't know why an "enemy of the people" like Xiaobo should get any accolades.

He's as bad as Peltier.

"sarcarm"

[murdoch]

12. Julian Assange from Wikileaks rots in prison due to Sweden

Julian Assange reveals how the US has death squads murdering civilians in Afghanistan, yet the criminal in this case is not the people doing this, or those who ordered it, but him for revealing it. So he rots in prison.

While the white, western powers are locking up journalists reveal their crime, they hold a massive hypocritical ceremony, full of hubris, to celebrate their self-righteousness and slap the inscrutable Orientals in the face.

The Swedish, surely at the behest of America (it becomes incredibly obvious when we see how the American hand is reaching to shut down Wikileaks all over the world, not just there) has him arrested by Interpol, and while they try to drag him off to the gulag, they have this hypocritical ceremony in Stockholm.

[Coventina]

14. LOL!!!! Sweden? Stockholm?

:rofl:

on edit: just so you understand, the Nobel Prize ceremony is held in Oslo, Norway.

[zonkers]

22. The confusion is understandable. For the most part, Nobel prizes are Swedish except

for the Peace Prize which is decided on and awarded in Norway. A belly laughing smilee is not warranted.

[sirthomas66]

20. That was an excellent post despite the error in location of the

award. I agree. Assange is rapidly becoming a real game-changer. The American "hand" is not what it used to be and is diminishing in power and respect rapidly. Anyway, great post.

[Bluenorthwest]

23. Norway and Sweden are not the same nations

And the Nobel is not a government function of either nation.
edited because I was wrong about my facts.

[sirthomas66]

24. I don't see it that way. And Norway's unconscionable mistake

comes back to haunt them now and for ever-more. I think abstractly not linearly. But to each his own.

[Coventina]

25. What exactly was the unconscionable mistake?

???

[sirthomas66]

26. Admirable.