Trading values

8 October 2010 By Ian Campbell

The granting of the Nobel Peace Prize to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo puts the PRC on the defensive politically when it is also under pressure to let its currency appreciate. The authorities are giving some ground on the yuan. The West is justified in pushing China further.

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The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded this year's Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo, an imprisoned Chinese dissident.

"We have to speak when others cannot speak," Thorbjoern Jagland, committee chairman, told Reuters. "As China is rising, we should have the right to criticise."

Ma Zhaoxu, a spokesman for China's foreign ministry, said the award "desecrated" the prize. Liu, he said, was a criminal sentenced by the Chinese judicial authorities for violating Chinese law. "What he has done," Ma added, "is contrary to the purpose of the Nobel Peace Prize."

President Barack Obama, winner of the peace prize last year, issued a statement welcoming the award of the prize to Liu. Obama said that "even as we respect the unique culture and traditions of different countries, America will always be a voice for those aspirations that are universal to all human beings."

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