December 09, 2010 - And that Nobel Peace Prize award for Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo has prompted one group in Beijing to offer its own prize—the newly created "Confucius Peace Prize."A local group that claimed an affiliation to China's Ministry of Culture awarded the prize today (Thursday) to Lien Chan, the former Vice President of Taiwan.
The new prize is somewhat of a mystery. After the Ministry of Culture said it knew nothing about it, the Confucius Peace Prize group then said they had no affiliation with the government.
And the office director for Lien Chan in Taiwan also said he'd heard nothing about the prize. Lien himself did not attend today's ceremony to accept the award.
Confucius was once China's most revered philosopher. Under Mao Zedong, the Chinese Communist Party denounced Confucius. But in recent years, the Party has promoted aspects of his teachings in a bid to promote so-called "social harmony."
