China & Nobel Price

The last presentation was Sylvain's one, about an article extracted from the Economist, dealing with the Nobel Peace Prize, awarded to a Chinese dissident : Liu Xiaobo.

Let's remember, as Sylvain did, who is this man : Liu Xiaobo, 54 years old, is a pacific opponent to the Chinese Regime. He was a main actor in the Tiananmen protests, and since 1989's events, writes several essays, among which « Charter 08 », a text calling for a real Democracy in China. This essay was seen by Chinese leaders as an “incentive of subversion of state power”. Liu Xiaobo was sent in Jail for the third time, for eleven years.

The decision of the Nobel committee infuriates Chinese leaders, because all international medias point at this man, and many organizations, among which Amnesty International, who want his release, are brought to light. According to Beijing, this decision is totally against the principles of the organization and could be a source of clash between China and Norway.

This article underlines the fact that many dissidents are in jail and also in a weird position : if Western countries know perfectly them and their ideas, Chinese People ignore them, because of Beijing's censorship and media control. Knowing that, we could wonder if those western countries, United States of America and European Union in the lead, could not use their influence in order to sort out the problem ?

According to Hillary Clinton, “[the] pressing on those issues can't interfere with the global economic crisis”. As Sylvain said, China has often been courted by West : during the cold war, it was a potential ally versus the USSR and today, China presents huge economic interests. Personally, I don't think western powers such as the US still have the power to influence China's civil right policy, considering China's weight in the global economy. China has become a real economic power, and can now catch up with America. By the way, the Asian power owns the majority of American treasury bills. As a result, China doesn't really fear economic sanctions. Beijing asserts that the Nobel Price Committee's decision is nothing but a symbol of fear felt by western powers towards economic Chinese power.

Contrary to Mr Liu, I don't think that civil rights are really making progress in China. Advances are very perfunctory. Do we have them to blame for all that ? Human rights and democracy are eventually nothing but western values which are imposed by Europa, United States & Nobel Comittee.