Dignitaries from round the world cheered the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo, the jailed Chinese dissident, in the face of vitriolic criticism from Beijing that highlighted the gulf dividing the country’s political system from the west.
Mr Liu, who is serving an 11-year sentence in China for subversion, was represented at Friday’s ceremony in Oslo by an empty chair – only the fifth time in the 109-year history of the award that the winner has been absent.
The ceremony at Oslo City Hall was attended by diplomats from about two-thirds of the countries invited but at least 19 nations, including Russia, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, stayed away, amid intense Chinese pressure for a boycott.
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