The turnout at Friday’s Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo has lessons for India and China alike. While the award to Liu Xiaobo, the jailed pro-democracy activist, has exposed the communist-ruled country’s soft underbelly, its fallout is instructive for India.
The majority of China’s neighbours that have decided to be absent from the ceremony are in India’s immediate or proximate neighbourhood. Countries such as Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam and Kazakhstan could have made the decision for reasons ranging from diplomatic pressure exerted by Beijing, fear of their own track record on human rights and democratic freedoms, or economic considerations.
While Pakistan’s boycott of the ceremony did not come as a surprise, given its all-weather friendship with China, Sri Lanka’s choice would definitely have caused concern for India.
The Norwegian Nobel Institute had invited 65 countries with embassies in Oslo out of which 44 accepted it, 19 countries declined, while Sri Lanka and Algeria did not reply.
IBSA, a group comprising India, Brazil and South Africa, remains intact as all three have confirmed their participation at the ceremony. The Group of Four (G-4), consisting of India, Germany, Brazil and Japan, is together, too. In sharp contrast, BRIC is split down the middle: China and Russia will boycott the ceremony but India and Brazil won’t.
Then there is NAM (non-aligned Movement): 16 of the 21 countries that have either declined the invitation or not replied to it are its members.
India, Indonesia, Thailand and South Africa are among the few NAM members that have decided to be a part of the ceremony.
Saarc did not fare any better. Of its eight members, four — India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka — have embassies in Oslo and, therefore, were invited. But India is the lone Saarc member to have accepted it.
Perhaps the only other groups that have done well for themselves are the European Union (EU) and, to a lesser extent, Nato (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation). The Uunited States and its trans-Atlantic European allies are expected to be in full attendance at the ceremony.
Call it the Obama effect but all four Asian countries — India, Indonesia, South Korea and Japan — that the US president swung through in November, will be attending the ceremony.