China snubs Nobel after it awards peace prize to Liu

China is awarding its own peace prize to counter the Nobel that recognised imprisoned democracy campaigner Liu Xiaobo.

Organisers of the Confucius Peace Prize will honour former Taiwanese vice president Lien Chan in Beijing today for his efforts at building peace between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan.

The prize named after philosopher Confucius is intended to give the Chinese “viewpoint of peace”.

The awards committee said Mr Lien, honorary chairman of Taiwan’s Nationalist Party, was selected from eight nominees.

Mr Lien’s office in Taipei said he had received no formal notification of the award.

The Chinese award ceremony comes a day before the Nobel ceremony in Oslo, Norway.

China has vilified Mr Liu, cracked down on fellow dissidents and urged other countries not to attend.

But China's attempts to sabotage the Nobel ceremony showed signs of backfiring today, as criticism of Beijing increased.

China’s high-pressure tactics and campaign of vilification have ensured a wave of publicity for Mr Liu, a bookish 54-year-old democracy activist who was formerly all but unknown, even inside China.

The governments of Serbia and the Philippines were criticised heavily for caving in to China’s demands to boycott the Nobel event.

China and 18 other nations – mostly close allies and fellow authoritarian states – have declined to attend, according to the Nobel committee, although there were reports Colombia had reversed its decision and was attending.

London-based human rights group Amnesty International said members of Norway’s Chinese community were being pressured by Chinese diplomats to attend anti-Nobel protests planned for tomorrow and had been threatened with retaliation if they failed to show up.

In China, Mr Liu’s wife Liu Xia, and dozens of friends, colleagues and sympathisers in the country’s embattled dissident community remained under house arrest or tight surveillance to prevent them from attending the ceremony.

Mr Liu, arrested in December 2008 after co-authoring a bold call for sweeping political reform, is serving an 11-year sentence for subversion – his fourth stretch of incarceration since 1989.

Li Heping, a civil rights lawyer, said the government’s harsh reaction to the prize was an eye-opener for the West, bringing into clear focus differences with China over values.