Dalai Lama criticises Chinese reaction to Nobel prize to Liu Xiaobo

Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama has criticised the way China reacted to this year's Nobel Peace Prize going to jailed dissident Liu Xiaobo, saying that the country does not appreciate different opinions at all.

"Beijing must transform itself into a transparent society. The Chinese government does not appreciate different opinions at all, the Tibetan leader told Kyodo news agency at Narita international airport on his way from Mumbai to US," a spokesperson of the exiled Tibetan government at Dharamsala said.

Liu is the third person to have been awarded the Nobel Prize while in jail, the other two being Myanmar's Aung Sang Suu Kyi in 1991 and German pacifist Carol von Ossietzky in 1935.

While leaders across the world including the Dalai Lama and US President Barack Obama lauded the 2010 Nobel Prize winner and called on the Chinese government to release him immediately, the selection of Liu as this year's laureate enraged the Chinese government, which dubbed the dissident as "criminal" and slammed the award as a violation of Nobel ideals and a discredit to the Peace Prize, the spokesperson said.

Dalai Lama, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, said building an open, transparent society was "the only way to save all people of China but some "hardliners" inside the leadership were stuck in an "old way of thinking".