Letters and Blogs

Action speaks louder than words

It is really a stunning surprise to many people around the world that US President Barack Obama was awarded the 2009 year Nobel Peace Prize "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."

One of the ideas Mr Obama has put forward is "a nuclear free world" with Russia, which is defending its nuclear weapons to balance the US. His "nuclear free world" idea is an ideal that may not come true in his lifetime. Even if the world is nuclear-free, everybody knows clearly that the US enjoys the absolute supremacy in terms of regular weapons.

Coming to the issue of climate change. Mr Obama has expressed frequently on the matter since his inauguration, including at the UN Summit on Climate Change. But his remarks contain very few concrete and specific measures for curbing greenhouse gas emissions except eloquent words. His real objective is to persuade other countries, especially China, to curb greenhouse gas emissions. There will be hard bargaining in the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December, and whether this conference is a success or not is not sure all.

Saying that Mr Obama "has done the most to enhance world peace in the previous year" is not justified. The US is the only major country in today's world to engage in two wars simultaneously. Blasts and casualties occur time and again in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The Middle East peace talks still show no promise of leading anywhere. The Iran and the DPRK nuclear issues are deteriorating further.

In short, Mr Obama's policies and aspirations only serve the fundamental interests of his own country rather than the international community. But "action speaks louder than words".

Mr Obama being the Nobel Peace Prize winner just reflects that today's world is dominated by the US.

Xu Jiaqing

via e-mail

A not-so-Nobel prize

The Nobel Prize for economics was created in 1968 and has nothing to do with the original purpose of the scientist-turned-tycoon. Nobel's intention was to reward science and encourage peace in the world. The inherent dual implication of every scientific discovery, and the necessity to stress the side of its peaceful use and applications, is evident in Nobel's realization of dynamite as well as in his initiatives in favor of world peace.

Everything created in the fields of technology and natural science, is totally neutral, and has no ideological characteristic.

But economics is a social science - indeed it is always related with political economy. And that's the reason the Nobel Prize for economics has been almost always biased in favor of professors trying to extol the so-called superiority of the large private corporations (this year, the case in point is Williamson), or the advantages of minuscule and marginal economic phenomena, with no importance for world economy (see this year's prize to Mrs Ostrom).

However, the most scandalous Nobel Prize for economics was to Coase in 1991, on the basis of one or two phrases pronounced by that professor in a handful of articles.

Cervini

via e-mail

(China Daily 10/15/2009 page8)