2. China Bullying the Nobel Prize CommitteeChina’s bullying of the Nobel Prize happened in 2010 when it pressured a number of countries to boycott the awards ceremony. For this particular year, Liu Xiaobo was named the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. He is a human rights activist who has fought for the abolition of the one-party rule in China and advocated democratic reforms. He is the first Chinese person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to receive the award because he was imprisoned by the Chinese government, and none of his family members were allowed to travel to Oslo to represent him.
All in all, 16 countries obeyed China’s call to boycott the awards ceremony. Why did they succumb to China’s bullying? Apparently, they were afraid of this Asian superpower, and didn’t want to mar their economic and political ties with it.
In December, the Chinese foreign ministry continued to denounce the award as "interference by a few clowns". It said "more than 100 countries and international organisations [had] expressed explicit support of China's position opposing this year's peace prize."
However, according to the Nobel Committee, only the 65 countries with diplomatic missions were invited; acceptances had been received from 46 countries, including the previously non-committal
India, while China and 19 others—Afghanistan, Algeria, Argentina, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Nepal, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Tunisia, Venezuela and Vietnam—declined invitations to the award ceremony "for various reasons".
On the eve of the award ceremony, China continued the rhetoric against the Nobel Committee and the West. A spokesman said: "We hope that those countries who have received invitations can tell right from wrong and uphold justice. It's not an issue of human rights. It's an issue of interfering in other countries' internal affairs"; the Nobel committee continued to be criticised for "encouraging crime"; the Global Times repeated earlier suggestions that the award was a Western conspiracy against Beijing, a "charge against China's ideology, aiming to undermine the benign surroundings for China's future development."
Colombia, Serbia, the Philippines and Ukraine initially announced they would not attend the ceremony, but later accepted the invitation.
The
Philippines ultimately did not attend: President Benigno Aquino III defended the Philippine non-attendance as "in our national interest"; the Philippine government, which had been heavily criticised in its national press for its decision, revealed its hope that China would show clemency to five Filipinos on death row for drug trafficking.
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