Liu Xiaobo awarded the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize

Dr. Eddies Wingman

Dr. Eddies Wingman

Brighter than thousand_suns
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/10/08/nobel.peace.prize.win/

This year's Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to a man currently serving an 11 year prison sentence for his opposition against the regime in Beijing. Will this in any way influence on the way this regime oppresses any political opposition, or will it just make them more determined to keep on with business as usual? How will it affect the awareness in the West? Or, in short; will this prize have any practical consequences?
 
I'd say: great slap in the face of the Chinese government. It will irritate them and their relations with your country will become worse.

But I like it. Well done, committee.  :ok:
 
Hate to be a naysayer, but I don't think this will do very much. Liu Xiaobo is very, very heavily criticised among his fellow regime critics. They accuse him of defaming some of his peers, and praising the Chinese Communist Party. Well, I can only repeat what I read in a trusted news source there, and it doesn't go in depth. So please don't ask me for any details.
What makes me think this won't change much though, is my memory of the Iranian activist Shirin Ebadi receiving the prize back in 2003. The situation in the country has actually grown worse since then. If Iran won't change, there's a fat chance China will. I mean, this is the country that distracted everybody with their bloody Olympic Games.
 
I'd say: great slap in the face of the Chinese government. It will irritate them and their relations with your country will become worse.
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Yes, they are a bunch of autocrats that oppress people, but i'd like to see another system feeding a billion hungry mouths.

This kind of stuff will only make them tight their chains even more. Up to year 2000, Chinese educational system was narrow-minded, aimed towards reverse-engineering and mass production. Only recently they've started reforming the thing to include a real development...and we all know, if you are going to be competent with a new idea, you must think outside the box. Which brings us to development of a critical mind, which is a must for a healthy political system. So, in a decade or two, things are going to start sorting out without any foreign interference. Those students of late '70s, with their narrow ways of thinking, are now sitting in the chairs of their government. In future, other former students will occupy same positions...but that students will be quite different.

It's easy for you and me to criticize from the comfortable position of our European chair from European computer inside European home. Imagine yourself as a rural land worker in rural China. You and hundreds of others in the village are living a very basic and poor life. But you are living. If system changes, a percent of that population will significantly increase their quality of life, others will drop even more. And to be blunt, they won't even survive. Capitalism can't feed billion people. So you have the option - maybe you'll be in those lucky few. Or you won't.

Take a look at Russia...vast majority of 150 million people was brought to level of bare survival when USSR collapsed. Include the fact that USSR's living standard of average worker was way above China's, and just imagine what would happen to China that has 7 times more people.
 
Guess I have been over looking all the contributions to world peace Obama has made, forgive me for deriding the chosen one.
 
Forostar said:
It will irritate them and their relations with your country will become worse.
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Why? I though the Nobel committee was independent of the government. I know there's an awards ceremony with the King, but I thought choosing the winner was another matter.

Of course, even if I'm right, I'm also assuming that the Chinese care about this at all and would act rationally. But... a government acting rationally? That would push man bites dog to page two.
 
bearfan said:
Guess I have been over looking all the contributions to world peace Obama has made, forgive me for deriding the chosen one.
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One comment, and you're worried about it?
 
SinisterMinisterX said:
Why? I though the Nobel committee was independent of the government. I know there's an awards ceremony with the King, but I thought choosing the winner was another matter.

Of course, even if I'm right, I'm also assuming that the Chinese care about this at all and would act rationally. But... a government acting rationally? That would push man bites dog to page two.
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Well, it turns out the Chinese are caring about it, and that they do give the Norwegian government stick for the Nobel committee's decision. A couple of scheduled meetings between Chinese officials and the Norwegian minister of fisheries have been canceled in protest.

It may seem a far stretch, but I would like to compare their reactions to those in the Muslim world who demanded apologies from Danish and Norwegian governments after those infamous prophet cartoons. In their own country, they are used to see that the authorities can decide whether a newspaper may publish something or not. The same with China and the Nobel prize; in China the government has a say in everything, thus it is harder for them to relate to a situation where this is not true (like in Norway and most other Western countries).
 
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