China shows its true face

If the Chinese government was hoping to snuff out the international repercussions of yesterday's presentation in Oslo of the Nobel Peace Prize to the dissident Liu Xiaobo, the results of its attempt turned out quite differently. The Beijing regime sentenced him to 11 years in prison as a deterrent to all other dissidents, as has been revealed by the US State Department cables to which EL PAÍS has been allowed access by WikiLeaks. And once Liu Xiaobo had been designated a Nobel winner, China managed to reduce the numbers of foreign state representatives at the ceremony after a forceful campaign of diplomatic threats, at the risk of exposing the limitations of the country's political system in full view.

All this, added to the campaign of slander and harassment against the Nobel winner, his family and friends, seriously damages China's international reputation.

The status of emerging power has turned China into an inescapable force in the world. With this award for Liu, Beijing had the chance to prolong the current situation in which all the leading powers, with the United States at the forefront, choose to minimize their demands in terms of human rights given the necessity of reaching understanding with a country considered so crucial to the shaping of the world's future. After such a display of bad temper on the part of Beijing, maintaining the delicate balance somewhere between cynicism and realism becomes that much harder.

Among the steps it has taken in reaction to the Norwegian committee's decision, China decided to create an alternative to the Nobel, the Confucius Peace Prize. The aim of this distinction is to reinforce the singularity of China's attitude toward internationally accepted principles, such as the need to respect human rights and political and civil liberties.

This is yet another mistake. The reasoning behind the Confucius Prize is identical to that which is employed by other authoritarian regimes when they are denounced for human rights violations. China is therefore aligning itself with such nations.

Dealing with the situation created by China with its reaction to the Nobel for Liu Xiaobo will not be an easy task for the international community. Cynicism and realism cannot be so easily combined from now on. And in the same way that China has been forced to show its true face, so too now must all the governments which maintain an ever-more intense relationship with the emerging power.