A salutary reminder

The fact that probably China's best-known dissident Liu Xiaobo has won this year's Nobel Peace Prize is one thing......but it has also served to once again highlight - as the West courts China and looks to it to "save" the world's financial ills - that the Chinese Government, is in fact, a repressive regime.

The Chinese have been swift in the outrage at the Prize awarded to Liu - as The New York Times reports all too graphically:

"The banquet organized Friday night to celebrate the news that the jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo had won the Nobel Peace Prize was over before it began.

The police in Beijing on Friday broke up a banquet honoring the dissident Liu Xiaobo for winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

While the two dozen bloggers, rights lawyers and academics were arriving at the private room they had reserved at a Beijing restaurant shortly after the Norwegian Committee’s announcement, the police rushed in and briskly led the celebrators away, according to those who were there.

On Saturday evening, at least a half-dozen participants remained in custody.

As presidents, religious figures and rights advocates around the world praised the Nobel Committee and called on the Chinese government to release Mr. Liu, one of China’s most prominent dissidents, the Chinese government reacted with unrestrained ire.

They called in the Norwegian ambassador in Beijing for a dressing down, placed scores of dissidents under house arrest and angrily described the decision to honor Mr. Liu as “blasphemy” and an insult to the Chinese people"

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