Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who is visiting Europe, warned Norway against awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Hong Kong protesters, urging the country to “hold dear the robust and stable” bilateral relations. “China was, is and will be resolute in opposing anyone making use of the Nobel Peace Prize to interfere in China’s internal affairs, and China stands firm on it because we don’t want to see anyone politicizing the Nobel Peace Prize,” said he.

According to the will made by Alfred Nobel, Swedish chemist, in 1895, the Nobel Peace Prize should be presented to “the person who has done the most or best to advance fellowship among nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and the establishment and promotion of peace congresses”. To totalitarian rulers that defend their regimes by hook or crook, this is what they mean by “interfering in internal affairs and politicizing the prize” and an internationalized political deed. And the prize winners were mostly political figures and organizations, including former U.S. President Obama, former USSR President Gorbachev, Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany Willy Brandt, the United Nations, and Ossietzky, who opposed Nazi’s expansion of armaments, civil rights activist Martin Luther King, and Pearson, former Secretary of State for External Affairs of Canada – Foreign Minister Wang Yi can take his chance.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi resisted “politicization” on behalf of the Chinese government. What did he mean by that? What he proposed can be likened to going against “politicization” of a government, “diplomatization” of diplomacy, “literaturization” of the Nobel Prize in Literature, “economicization” of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. Funnily enough, China had not been up in arms about “politicization” at award presentations for most prize winners, but taken a stand against the prizes awarded to Dalai Lama in exile overseas and Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, and Hong Kong’s protesters, who persevere in fighting for freedom and democracy, nominated for the prize. Rather than putting it forward as preposterously as Wang did, China should have said it disapproves of the Nobel Peace Prize, or even threatened with words like “Don’t get me riled, or I’ll get you derailed.”

What is particularly ridiculous is under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party(CCP), while the Chinese government has always politicized everything, it has always put up a fight against politicization at every turn. Chinese media should be part of the CCP family; the courts should be loyal to the CCP; schools and colleges should be led by party secretaries and branches; even kids at kindergarten are requested to sit properly in front of TV watching Xi Jinping making his empty and lengthy speeches. Joining the CCP is advancement while organizing an opposition party is an offence. After parents killed or starved to death, kids crushed to death by jerry-built school edifices and infants maimed for life by poisonous milk powder, people were educated not to complain about the government, but look forward. Those who survived the Cultural Revolution, stayed afloat in flood disasters, crawled out of debris after earthquakes and vanquished the novel COVID-19 with their own immunities, should thank the CCP out of a deep debt of gratitude for its help.

Politics is a process during which humans make collective decisions by various means. As long as humans exist, politics and politicization are inevitable. There is good and bad politics. Opposition to politicization is often referred to for criticizing bad, wrong or inappropriate political proceedings: politicians stirring up nationalist issues to canvass voters for their ballots, requesting scientists to declare their stands on patriotism and allegiance to a political party, modifying course guidelines to misrepresent history, to name but a few. Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s opposition to politicization of the Nobel Peace Prize is itself an inappropriate politicization, and a naked threat to the international community.

While the Chinese government has reiterated time and again it disapproves of politicization of the origin of the COVID-19, it has declined any independent investigation to be carried out by a global organization. Wang Yi said at the same press conference in Norway that though China was the first country to inform the WHO of the existence of the COVID-19, it did not mean the pathogens stemmed from China. He said, “In fact, over the past few months, we had seen reports suggesting that the COVID-19 emerged all over the world, and much earlier in some regions.”

If the virus originates from China, it could be attributed to Chinese government’s mismanagement of wildlife wet markets or centers for virus research, or a natural phenomena which has nothing to do with man-made mistakes. However, in view of the Chinese government taking to heart so much whether the virus comes from China, while declining an independent inquiry by the international community, people’s concerns are justifiable.

A meticulous probe into such a pandemic that has given rise to a global crisis is just what humans will naturally do for sustainability. Nonetheless, the Chinese government has gone so far as to say no to any inquiry by international experts. Three weeks ago, it grudgingly approved of two advance experts despatched by the WHO, which is subordinated to the Chinese government, to work with the Chinese doctors in an attempt to find out the origin of the virus. The latest information has shown that the duo has returned home without even catching a glimpse of Wuhan. Chinese government’s interference into the work of the experts did not only waste the money and resources of the international organization, but is also an offence posing a threat to human lives and health.

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