Wayward Nobel Peace Prize should just be canceled
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai Wednesday condemned China's treatment of Liu Xiaobo, another peace prize winner, after his death from liver cancer last week, according to Reuters. She condemned “any government who denies people's freedom.” But does the 20- year Pakistani education activist truly understand the real situation in China? She may believe what she said, however, as the Western media asked her to make such comments specifically on China, she has been turned into a tool. In fact, the Nobel Peace Prize has been used by the West to vent its hostility toward China.
The Nobel Peace Prize has shown increasing preference for those that embrace Western values, and has become increasingly political. Of prize winners in the past century, the majority are from Western Europe or North America, according to statistics from the Nobel committee's website. Is it because Europeans and Americans make more contributions to world's peace? Of course not.
Right after Liu was awarded the peace prize in 2010, a commentary piece in the Guardian questioned his qualification for the prize “because he is a champion of war, not peace.” But this was overlooked by the West, intentionally, because what matters is his pro- colonialism and subversion attempt of China, which caters to Westerners.
In fact, the Nobel Peace Prize committee has made numerous controversial decisions. Its award to then US president Barack Obama in 2009 confused not only the majority of the world, but Obama himself, as he was just eight and a half months into the White House. The Dalai Lama, also a laureate, has long engaged in antiChina separatist activities under the guise of religion. The committee's decision to award Le Duc Tho, a Vietnamese diplomat, and the award to former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger aroused a storm of criticism in 1973.
Alfred Nobel wrote in his will that the peace prize shall be awarded to “the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” However, as China's foreign ministry said, the prize was wrongly awarded to criminals who attempted to split China, sabotage national unity and subvert State power, for the purpose of achieving their political agenda. Clearly this has run contrary to the will of Nobel and the purposes of the peace prize.
The Guardian said the peace prize is an award for politics of a certain kind. That's true. Since the peace prize has deviated from its original intent and turns to represent just Western values, it's time to just cancel the prize altogether.