China ends up creating new enemies with attacks on Liu
AFP, Dec 10, 2010, 07.35am
China gets a taste of international defiance.
BEIJING: China's campaign to vilify Nobel peace prize winner Liu Xiaobo and sabotage the award ceremony showed signs of backfiring on Thursday , as criticism of Beijing rose and the jailed Chinese dissident seemed to be turning into a celebrity.
While China has successfully persuaded more than a dozen countries not to attend Friday's ceremony to honor Liu and began blocking foreign media coverage of the event on the internet, analysts said its efforts also appeared to be galvanizing the West, reminding democracies of the gulf between them and Beijing.
45 nations will attend the ceremony today.
Amnesty International said members of Norway's Chinese community were being pressured by Chinese diplomats to join anti-Nobel protests planned for Friday and had been threatened with retaliation if they failed to appear.
Instead , some pro-democracy protesters showed up in Oslo on Thursday in support of Liu.
Several news websites, including the BBC's and Norwegian broadcaster NRK's , were blocked in China, apparently to blot out coverage of the ceremony. Some Nobelrelated reports on CNN's website were also inaccessible.
But this campaign has taken a toll on China's efforts to win foreign friends by projecting a more mild image of the country through foreign aid, investment and media.
China's "very public tantrum has generated even more critical attention inside and outside China and, ironically , emphasized the significance of Liu's message of respect for human rights," Amnesty International's secretary general, said.
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AFP, Dec 10, 2010, 07.35am
China gets a taste of international defiance.
BEIJING: China's campaign to vilify Nobel peace prize winner Liu Xiaobo and sabotage the award ceremony showed signs of backfiring on Thursday , as criticism of Beijing rose and the jailed Chinese dissident seemed to be turning into a celebrity.
While China has successfully persuaded more than a dozen countries not to attend Friday's ceremony to honor Liu and began blocking foreign media coverage of the event on the internet, analysts said its efforts also appeared to be galvanizing the West, reminding democracies of the gulf between them and Beijing.
45 nations will attend the ceremony today.
Amnesty International said members of Norway's Chinese community were being pressured by Chinese diplomats to join anti-Nobel protests planned for Friday and had been threatened with retaliation if they failed to appear.
Instead , some pro-democracy protesters showed up in Oslo on Thursday in support of Liu.
Several news websites, including the BBC's and Norwegian broadcaster NRK's , were blocked in China, apparently to blot out coverage of the ceremony. Some Nobelrelated reports on CNN's website were also inaccessible.
But this campaign has taken a toll on China's efforts to win foreign friends by projecting a more mild image of the country through foreign aid, investment and media.
China's "very public tantrum has generated even more critical attention inside and outside China and, ironically , emphasized the significance of Liu's message of respect for human rights," Amnesty International's secretary general, said.
.
And that's for friends only.
