At first, I chuckled appreciatively at this story. Communist China, an egregrious human-rights abuser, has launched its own version of the Nobel Peace Prize (to protest the Nobel Committee awarding their peace prize to a peaceful Chinese dissident who writes about human freedom and dignity), and China is awarding this new peace prize to Vladimir Putin? Hah! Good one! But alas, dear readers, I then realized that no, this is not a story from the satirical newspaper The Onion.
MOSCOW — Four days after reminding distinguished visitors to Moscow — over dinner — that Russia can destroy the U.S. in half an hour or less, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was named the latest winner of a Chinese peace prize intended as a counterweight to Stockholm’s Nobel Prize.
The prize’s organizers told news agencies Tuesday that Mr. Putin was chosen to receive the Confucius Peace Prize at a Dec. 9 ceremony Beijing, a day before the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony. The Chinese award was launched hastily last year after imprisoned dissident Liu Xiaobo was chosen for the Nobel, incensing Beijing. The first person picked for the China prize, former Taiwan vice president Lien Chan, failed to appear last year to collect the award.
Oh, Communist Party of China. Your paltry attempts to convince the world that your country is a place of civility, dignity, and grandeur, are just weak, petty, and transparent. Pathetic.
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