CHINA AND THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE

NO-SHOWS FOR NOBEL PEACE PRIZE REVEAL CHINA'S INFLUENCE

Meera Bhatia and Marianne Stigset

Bloomberg, December 10, 2010

At least 20 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.

The no-show list, double the number from two years ago, reflects China’s growing global influence as its economic power expands, says Iver B. Neumann, Research Director at the Oslo- based Norwegian Institute of International Affairs.

“China is the rising power of the century,” said Neumann in an interview Dec. 8. “This seems to be one of the central dramas of world politics today. The discussion will certainly not blow over.”

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