Prize makes everyone a loser

The 2010 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to jailed Chinese activist Liu Xiaobo has become an international cause clbre, but it is also a sad paradox, a prize without any real winner which generates mistrust and perplexity when understanding and clarity are most needed.

On a highly sensitive issue, two axioms have to be reaffirmed. Given the level of interdependence which links China and the world, neither conflict nor isolation are acceptable options; our discourses and actions have to be subordinated to the ideal of complementarity, synergy and harmony. Many would like to see a radically different China before it fully integrates into the world system on Western terms, but one supports another historical course: A modernizing China will choose to be cooperative as a stakeholder of an upgraded global governance. What follows derives from these two postulates.

In a witty op-ed piece for The New York Times one year ago, Yoni Brenner played with a Norwegian word, "thorbjorn", a term he coined in a reference to the chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize committee Thorbjorn Jagland. Brenner aimed to capture with this neologism the combination of awkwardness, incredulity and embarrassment that followed the decision to honor US President Barack Obama after he was in the White House for only eight months. The verb "thorbjorning" has come to mean rewarding someone before he/she accomplishes what he/she set out do to. If one adds to the "thorbjorn" feeling a sense of regrettable inadequacy, one depicts the mood that dominates large segments of Chinese society after the 2010 announcement.