Analysts, politicians and journalists around the world agree: the attitude of complete closure with respect to the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo has seriously impacted on the Chinese government’s attempt to rehabilitate itself after the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Beijing (AsiaNews) - The Chinese attitude towards the Nobel Peace Laureate Liu Xiaobo, " clearly shows the mask has slipped and Beijing has again revealed a forbidding, autocratic scowl”, today writes the influential Financial Times newspaper, adding its voice to the number of analysts and experts who are criticizing the Chinese attitude towards the ceremony in Oslo.

Times Wang, the son of Wang Bingzhang (a Chinese dissident jailed for life for his political activities) explains: " the Party's strategy to discredit Liu and the Nobel prize is the saddest irony. Instead of being proud that a Chinese was being awarded for the first time, the Party fills its people's hearts with hatred".

Nicholas Bequelin, a researcher at Human Rights Watch: "The ham-fisted response to the Nobel crisis has dramatically undermined Beijing's post-Tiananmen efforts to rehabilitate its image It becomes harder for China's interlocutors to sweep aside human rights in bilateral or multilateral relations".

The president of Taiwan, Ma Ying-jeou, has even joined the chorus, asking the Chinese government to release Liu Xiaobo, "As a nation that values human rights, we ask to mainland China to free the dissident as soon as possible."

On Friday night, coinciding with the ceremony of the Nobel Peace Prize to the Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, at least four Chinese websites posted pictures of the empty chair in Oslo reserved for the winner of the prize. According to a blogger on website Weibo, a banner of congratulations to Liu was hung from a building at the University of Changsha, Hunan, and removed a few minutes later by the university authorities. A photo of the banner was spread on Twitter, where it survived only 30 seconds before being cleared.

Dissidents were unable to send strong signals of support for the award of the Nobel Prize to Liu, but Chinese dissidents in exile believe that the award to a professor of literature who is serving 11 years in prison for having promoted the pro- Democracy document Charter 08, "has given a new impetus to the Chinese democracy movement."

Yang Jianli, an exile who spent five years in prison for his participation in the democratic movement of 1989, said: "The most important change that the award makes is the change in people's hearts. Now people will take the democratic movement more seriously. "

Su Xiaokang, the scriptwriter of the TV series River Elegy (a critical review of Chinese culture that contributed to the development of the movement of 1989), highlighted the pacifist message of the Nobel Prize, "Liu said, we do not want violence, we need of peaceful development and we must abide by the Constitution. "

The anti-AIDS activist Wan Yanhai, who is in exile in the U.S. to escape the increasing attention of the police, claimed that Liu Xiaobo has "solid and moderate views and is not among those who support 'extremism”'. In China, dozens of dissidents and friends of the Nobel Prize winner, including his wife, Liu Xia, remain under house arrest. At least 140 dissidents were captured by Chinese police since early October, when everything pointed towards  the Nobel Peace Prize going to Liu. Dozens more, were deported out of Beijing on the eve of the award ceremony.

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