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Comment by sasvari | Hacker News Reader

It will be interesting to see whether China is going to follow through with their threat to downgrade their political relations with Norway now.

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When Dalai Lama received the prize in 1989, the relationship between Norway and China became ice cold for a few years. Then everything went back to normal. Presumably, that will be the turn of events this time as well.

This is not an award given by the Norwegian government. It is given by the independent Norwegian Nobel Committee. If the means anything for the chinese I don't know, but it is a huge difference with regard to the two countries political relations.

Yes, an independent committee whose "five members are appointed by the Norwegian Parliament and roughly represent the political makeup of that body”.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_Nobel_Committee

That may be true, but they aren't speaking with the authority of the state. There is a difference.

Sure, I don’t disagree, I just wanted to provide some nuance to the word ”independent”.

Chinese foreign policy is not always following rational paths in regard to Western standards. And this constellation is exactly why I wonder if they make their threat true or not.

As a Westerner intimately familiar with China (live and work here, Master's in Chinese), I find Chinese foreign policy exceptionally rational, if Machiavellian (for examples, I would point to their behavior towards North Korea and their currency policy).

What do you find irrational about Chinese foreign policy?

Ah, we're working on two different levels of rationality. Irrational threats ("If you walk on my lawn I will rape your dog") are nonetheless a rational policy (your lawn won't get walked upon).

Could you elaborate? I live in Norway, but isn't known to the China-Norway political relations.

The director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute says a high-ranking Chinese official has warned him that giving the peace prize this year to a Chinese dissident would harm relations between Norway and China.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iAekET4T1D...

Norway started negotiating with China about a new trade policy in 2008. This was going well, and Norway might have been the first European country to get such a deal.

According to Norwegian newspapers, it is now a great risk that China cancels the negotiations.

Presumably Norway is one of the few countries that doesn't have to worry too much about upsetting the Chinese - they have huge amounts of money and oil and Russia in between them and the Chinese.

Having money doesn't mean that trade embargoes or tariffs won't hurt a country at the margin. The goods that are available to them to buy with that money through international trade will decline in number, which is a clear loss. You can't live on oil alone.

well, you may not be able to live on oil alone, but the oil funded norwegian sovereign fund already owns 1% of the global equity markets and are heading for 2% of the european stock markets (with the oil still being pumped out).

Moreover, an embargo is only effective if it can be enforced, there is nothing stopping chinese goods going from other european countries, they would only have a bit higher overhead.

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