Thomas Friedman attempts to make up for some of his earlier admiring writing about China with a strong paragraph in his New York Times column:
Mr. Liu was represented at Friday's Nobel ceremony by an empty chair because China would not release him from prison — only the fifth time in the 109-year history of the prize that the winner was not in attendance. Under pressure from Beijing, the following countries joined China's boycott of the ceremony: Serbia, Morocco, Pakistan, Venezuela, Afghanistan, Colombia, Ukraine, Algeria, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia, Vietnam and the Philippines. What a pathetic bunch.
Iraq! Afghanistan! Egypt! Saudi Arabia! These are countries in which America has invested an awful lot of tax dollars and lives in building up. Pretty remarkable.
