DHARAMSHALA, September 18: China last year announced its very own version of a global peace awards as a riposte to the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s decision to honour Chinese dissident Liu Xiabao.
But the first Confucius peace prize proved to be a damp squib as its maiden winner failed to appear for the award ceremony.
Former Taiwanese Vice President Lien Chan made matters worse for the Chinese government sponsored award organisers when he said that he only learned of his victory from reports in the media.
This year round, China has done it again.
China on Saturday announced its shortlist of nominees for this year’s award which include Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Gyaltsen Norbu, a 21-year old Tibetan boy handpicked by the communist party to be the 11th Panchen Lama.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, South African President Jacob Zuma, and Yuan Longping, a Chinese agricultural scientist known as the father of hybrid rice are the other candidates.
According to the award committee, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and former UN secretary general Kofi Annan are also among those being considered for the award.
Executive Chairman of the award committee, Liu Haofeng, told reporters in Beijing that Gyaltsen Norbu, who had faced protests in recent months from Tibetan monks and locals in eastern Tibet where he was brought to stay, was being chosen as a candidate for his role in “promoting harmony in China.”
The Chinese government over the years have made deliberate efforts at promoting their choice of the 11th Panchen Lama while refraining to give any information on the whereabouts of the boy chosen by Tibetan spiritual leader His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
Days after the Dalai Lama announced Gedhun Choekyi Nyima as the reincarnation of the 10th Panchen Lama, China abducted the 6-year old boy and his parents. For 16 years now, despite international pressure, Beijing continues to keep the world in the dark over their well-being.
Liu told reporters that the winner, chosen by a jury panel of 20 Chinese people from the fields of arts, literature, and with an interest in politics, would be announced on December 9 — a day before the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo — and awarded 100,000 yuan ($15,700).
