After Nobel, China Snubs Norway, but Not Norwegian Oil

(Dec. 13) -- After the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded this year's peace prize to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, Beijing cracked down on human rights activists at home and lashed out at Norway and the West in general as "clowns" conspiring in "an anti-China farce."

China suspended trade talks with Norway, canceled high-level meetings between the two countries and persuaded a score of other nations to boycott the Nobel ceremony.

The Nobel Peace Prize committee sit next to the empty chair of Liu Xiabao.

Odd Andersen, AFP / Getty Images

Members of the Nobel Peace Prize committee, from left, Thorbjoern Jagland, Kaci Kullmann Five and Sissel Marie Roenbeck sit next to the empty chair of the laureate during the ceremony for Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo at the city hall in Oslo, Norway, on Friday.

But China's outrage seems to have had no effect on its affection for Norwegian oil.

On Friday, when an empty chair in Oslo was standing in for the imprisoned Liu at the awards ceremony, China Oilfield Services Ltd., one of the Chinese energy industry's biggest companies, proudly announced a deal likely to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars with Norwegian petroleum giant Statoil.

The company, known as COSL, was awarded a contract to drill in the frigid waters of the North Sea for up to five years starting next summer. Its semisubmersible rig COSLPioneer is able to operate in the region's stormy weather and in depths of up to 750 meters.

"I would like to extend my thanks to Statoil for their trust in us," said Li Yong, chief executive of the company.

Meanwhile, China's crackdown on Liu's fellow human rights activists appears to have intensified.

Three United Nations human rights experts said today that since the Oct. 8 naming of Liu as the Nobel Peace laureate, they have received reports of more than 20 arrests of human rights defenders and more than 120 additional cases of activists being placed under house arrest -- including Liu's wife, Liu Xia.

"This recent and alarming trend to increasingly restrict the space to exercise the right to freedom of expression and the ability of Chinese human rights defenders to carry out their peaceful and legitimate activities calls into question China's commitments to promote and protect universal human rights," the three, who work for the U.N. Human Rights Council, said in a join statement.

They are Margaret Sekaggya, special rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders; Frank La Rue, special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression; and the chair-rapporteur of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, El Hadji Malick Sow.

"We call upon the government of the People's Republic of China to take all the necessary steps to put an end to these restrictions and reiterate our appeal to release all persons detained for peacefully exercising their fundamental rights, including Liu Xiaobo," they said.

Liu, who drafted the "Charter 08" petition for political reform in China, was sentenced a year ago to 11 years in prison for "inciting subversion of state power."