This has been a hot topic in China for many years. Given its population, total economic power, and rich history, shouldn't at least one Chinese have won the Nobel Prize. Technically there are. Quite a number of ethnic Chinese have won the award, especially in the sciences, but none of them were citizens of the People's Republic of China at the time of award. If we use proportions, 1/5 of the prize should have gone to Chinese. This is clearly not the case as well.
It can be quite an embarrassment to certain people, and some are puzzled. Go to any bookstores in China and you're bound to find books explaining the current situation. Titles such as "we will win the Nobel Prize in a certain number of years sells pretty too. The entire country seems quite obsessed with this. To them, winning Olympic (Olympiad) medals and Nobel prizes are signs of a stronger nation. To me, this is just silly. A country or people's achievement can't be measured using such parameters, not evenly remotely.
Now the irony comes. Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel peace prize! He is a proper Han Chinese (unlike the 14th Dalai Lama) whose citizenship is not disputed. The country should have been immersed in jubilant celebrations marking this historic moment. However, such a heroic achievement to the Chinese people was absent from all news channel in China. People don't hear a thing about this (as was the case with Dalai Lama). This just shows the level of censorship in Mainland. I feel sad for the nation and sad for the people. Clearly the communist party is set to continue its policy on human rights and rule of law. Any attempts to induce changes were met with "you're meddling with my internal affair". The crackdown on such reform-minded people can only increase as it feels more threatened than ever. The change will come someday, one way or another, yet the struggle ahead for Liu and his friends will be long and hard.
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