DIPLOMATIC DYNAMICS

DIPLOMATIC DYNAMICS

W rong ly Aw arded Peace Prize

More than 100 countries and international organizations have expressed support for China’s stance on this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, which was awarded to convicted Chinese crim inal Liu Xiaobo, said Chinese Foreign M inistry spokeswoman Jiang Yu.

“This shows that the majority of international community members do not accept the Nobel Comm ittee’s w rong decision,” Jiang said at a December 7 press conference.

Liu was sentenced to 11 years in jail in December 2009, after a Beijing court convicted him of violating Chinese law and engaging in activities aimed at overthrowing the government.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee’s decision to grant the Nobel Peace Prize to a convicted criminal was tantamount to overt support for criminal activities in China, and a “gross interference” in China’s judicial sovereignty, Jiang said.

“I think it is difficult to maintain China-Norway relations as well as they w ere in the past, because the Nobel Comm ittee conferred the Nobel Peace Prize on a convicted Chinese crim inal,and the Norwegian Government publicly expressed its support for such a decision,” she added.

Jiang said she deemed it “reasonable and understandable” for some Chinese departments to cast doubt on normal bilateral exchanges and cooperation w ith Norway.

She urged the international community not to hold double standards with regard to the rule of law, since many other countries, including the United States and Britain, also have similar laws against subversion.

“The issue of Liu Xiaobo is not a matter of free speech and human rights,”she said. “It is a matter of respecting other countries’ judicial rights and how to view China’s development path and social system.”

A spokesperson o f the Beijing Municipal Higher People’s Court said the court’s decision on Liu’s case was based on an adequate factual and legal foundation.

Liu incited others to subvert state power through w riting incendiary articles, releasing them on the Internet and inducing others to sign in support of his articles, said the spokesperson.