China and EU heading for a confrontation over human rights

The European Parliament has awarded, the Sakharov Prize, to the Chinese dissident Hu Jia (see post from September 29th). This in turn has upset the Chinese, government which has now accused the European Union of interfering in China's internal affairs.1 Perhaps, they have a point and if news of the prize is to spread, it might encourage more dissidents. Nevertheless, unfortunately for the Chinese, it doesn't work that way in this part of the world and the European Parliament can give its prize to whoever it wants. It is bad enough having had the Americans dictate to us for decades as to what we can and cannot do and it would be awful if, for reasons of political and economic expediency, we were now to do what the Chinese government wants.
Moreover, while we might have been able to understand China's reaction if the prize were to have further encourage human rights' activists, the evidence would seem to suggest that people like Hu, although very thin on the ground, rarely need an extra incentive and yet here we have the Chinese government pulling out all the stops to try to prevent him getting the award. For instance, on Hu being announced as one of the finalists a few weeks ago, Song Zhe, the Chinese ambassador to the EU, said in a letter to Hans-Gert Poettering that honouring Hu “would inevitably hurt the Chinese people and once again bring serious damage to China-EU relations.”2 How serious that damage might be can be assessed in the next couple of days during the EU-Asian (ASEM) Conference that is taking place in Beijing.
The real hope though is that, in the global village, the Chinese understand that neighbours cannot be bullied and that they have every right to take an interest in what is going on outside their own four walls. If the Chinese can understand this, perhaps there will be a new chance for a set of morals and laws to hold sway over an international community that for all to long has been a victim of American unilateralism. Unfortunately, China is already beginning to act like the USA and in trying to dictate who the Europeans can give or cannot give a prize to, it is in fact China that is interfering in European affairs.
1 http://www.iht.com/articles/reuters/2008/10/23/asia/OUKWD-UK-EU-PRIZE-CHINA.php
2 http://www.kansascity.com/news/world/story/855551.html