• This of course doesn’t take away from Liu’s win at all. After a year when the Nobel Peace Prize committee faced heavy criticism for selecting the relatively fresh Obama as their pick, they’ve redeemed themselves by picking someone on the front lines of peace activism – only the third currently-incarcerated winner in the award’s history. (He’s serving 11 years in prison, a harsh sentence, on fairly minor charges.) Of course, China doesn’t see it that way, and it could – at least in the short term – do more harm than good for the world at large. Some (mostly unfortunate) side effects from the win:

• one The first one is already happening – China is shutting down lines of communication, even blocking the word “Liu” from text messages.
• two The win could have the opposite intended effect on human rights – causing Chinese dissidents harm as a direct result of Liu’s win.
• three Norway’s economy could directly suffer as a result of the pick. China accounted for 3.7 percent of the Scandinavian country’s exports. source

• (photo by Flickr user laihiu)

Posted by Ernie Smith • Permalink