Nineteen Countries To Skip Nobel Ceremony

From The New York Times and The Heritage Foundation:

19 Countries to Skip Nobel Ceremony, While China Offers Its Own PrizeBy ALAN COWELL


Published: December 7, 2010


LONDON — Nineteen governments have said their ambassadors will not attend a ceremony this week awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to the imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, the Norwegian prize committee said Tuesday, more than tripling the number of rejections and reflecting the strong pressure exerted by Beijing to boycott the event.



At the same time, China announced that it would create its own prize for peace, named for the ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius, and award it for the first time on Thursday, a day before the Nobel ceremony. The choice of recipient offered a stark counterpoint as well: a Taiwanese politician who opened doors to the mainland.



The Nobel committee, in a statement on its Web site, said that as of Monday, 44 embassies in Oslo, the Norwegian capital, had signaled their intention to send a representative to the ceremony on Friday. But the number who “for various reasons declined our invitations” rose to 19, from 6 three weeks ago, the statement said.



Those countries, in addition to China, are Afghanistan, Colombia, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Pakistan, the Philippines, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Sudan, Tunisia, Ukraine, Venezuela and Vietnam.



China was incensed by the Nobel committee’s choice of Mr. Liu, who is serving an 11-year sentence for his essays and a manifesto he helped draft, Charter 08, which demands political reform, human rights guarantees and an independent judicial system. The government has been waging an offensive to rebrand the prize — which comes with a medal and $1.5 million — as a Western ploy to undermine the Chinese Communist Party’s hold on power.



On Tuesday, the chairman of the newly created Confucius Peace Prize committee, Tan Changliu, told The Associated Press that the first award would be given this week to Lien Chan, former vice president of Taiwan and the honorary chairman of its opposition Nationalist Party. The award includes a cash prize of $15,000.



In Mr. Lien, the committee found a man in harmony with the government on the longstanding, thorny case of Taiwan, which China regards as a breakaway territory. In 2005, Mr. Lien became the first Nationalist leader to travel to mainland China since 1949 in a groundbreaking trip that warmed relations.



The Nobel committee, for its part, has said that for the first time since 1936, the prize will not be handed over because neither Mr. Liu, who is in prison, nor members of his family have been permitted to travel to Oslo to receive it.



Mr. Liu’s wife, Liu Xia, has been held largely incommunicado since the award was announced in October.



Geir Lundestad, the secretary of the Nobel committee, said there would be an empty chair and a portrait of Mr. Liu on the podium as the rest of the glittery ceremony proceeded with speeches and musical interludes — some, at Mr. Liu’s request, performed by children’s choirs.



Reuters quoted Chinese officials as saying that supporters of Mr. Liu were fundamentally opposed to China’s development and trying to interfere in the country’s politics and legal system.



A Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Jiang Yu, told reporters, “I would like to say to those at the Nobel committee, they are orchestrating an anti-China farce by themselves.”



“We are not changing because of interference by a few clowns and we will not change our path,” she said, according to Reuters.



Invitations to the ceremony are routinely sent only to those 65 countries with embassies in Oslo, Mr. Lundestad said in a telephone interview. Those who accepted included “all the Western countries” along with representatives from other countries including Brazil, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Africa and South Korea, he said.



He said there had been reports suggesting that the prize might be handed over to people other than Mr. Liu’s close family, but that was not the case. “We assume that no close family will be coming,” he said. “But if someone surfaces, we can change very quickly.”



According to the Nobel Web site, the last time no one was present to accept the peace medal was in 1936, when the German journalist and pacifist Carl von Ossietzky, who had been awarded the prize in 1935, was not allowed to leave Nazi Germany in either year. Since then, the prize has been received on at least three occasions by family members of the recipients, including the son of the Burmese opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who delivered an acceptance speech on her behalf.



Additionally, the prize was not awarded from 1914 to 1916, 1918, and from 1939 to 1943 because of the two world wars.



In World War II, Norway was under Nazi occupation from 1940 to 1945. In 1944, the International Committee of the Red Cross was named but the prize was handed over in 1945 after the war ended, according to the Nobel Web site.





J. David Goodman contributed reporting from New York.