China counters Nobel with Confucius Prize

China on Thursday awarded a newly created “peace prize” to a man who had no intention of accepting it one day before a Chinese professor was to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for trying to bring democracy to the communist dictatorship.

The awarding of the Confucius Peace Prize comes amid a campaign by China to vilify the dissident who was awarded the Nobel and delegitimize the Norwegian prize itself. Dissident Liu Xiaobo, a literary critic imprisoned in a Chinese jail, will not be allowed to appear in Oslo today to accept the Nobel.