The Nobel peace prize committee had already used up all its credits when it awarded the peace prize to President Obama last year, just to get a slap on the face when Obama told them in the acceptance speech that he would escalate the Afghan war.

Awarding the Nobel peace prize is just to buy the airtime with a million dollars to make a political statement. That I understand. What puzzles me though is how come the committee members are so near-sighted. The fiasco of awarding the prize to Obama, who by that time had only talked the talk and yet to walk the walk, is merely one of many.

I think Liu has done a courageous job in advocating openly for radical political reforms in China while not hiding away outside China - whether or not the radical reform he advocates is feasible in current China is a separate issue, but Liu's courage under pressure is admirable. After being awarded the peace prize, however, Liu would need a lot more courage and a better judgement to not be used as a pawn by some interest groups that do not see themselves benefit from a peaceful relationship between the West and China.

Talking about world peace, it is really hard to deny the fact that the Chinese government, however unpopular it appears, has done a tremendous peace-enhancing job in integrating the Chinese economy with the world. The economic interdependency thereby created makes it a lot more costly to wage a war between the major powers nowadays than say after the Great Depression.