No glue binds Beijing’s band of 19

At the Nobel Peace prize ceremony in Oslo this evening, Chinese dissident human rights activist Liu Xiaobo will be given the award.

Since neither Liu, currently in jail in China, nor his wife, at present under house arrest, will be attending, their presence will be shown through an empty chair.

China lobbied, pressurised and threatened countries to boycott the ceremony and it has managed to convince 19 of them. The curious aspect is that there is little in common among them.

For instance, Pakistan has obviously agreed because of its strategy of befriending any apparent adversary of India. What is intriguing is what motivated Russia and Vietnam? Russia retains an ambivalent attitude towards the West but it is now part of the West.

Vietnam, despite its adherence to communism, has close trade ties with the United States. The case of Cuba is clearest because it remains communist.

All that can be said is that China has gathered a motley group of countries with no apparent rationale.