Soft Power: The Confucius Peace Prize

Lien Chan’s office told Singapore’s Morning News that Lien hadn’t heard of his latest award, the Confucius Peace Prize (孔子和平奖), beforehand. Lien, honarary chairman of Taiwan’s governing KMT, has been awarded the prize for his contributions to bridging the Taiwan Strait (奖是表扬连战为海峡两岸搭桥做出贡献).

The Confucius Peace Prize comes with 100,000 RMB prize money, Tan Changliu (谭长流), the Confucius Peace Prize Commission‘s chairman, is quoted as saying. He declined to give further information about when the committee had been established, how its five members had been chosen, but  added that such information would be given later. He said that the committee was not a government agency, but that it did indeed cooperate closely with the ministry of culture, and was meant to set forth Chinese peoples’ concept of peace.

According to the Taipei Times,

Mainland Affairs Council Chairwoman Lai Shin-yuan (賴幸媛) told lawmakers in Taipei that the government found the prize “amusing.”
“As far as we know it is an unofficial prize. We don’t plan to make any comment on it,” she said. “But we do find it amusing.”

Neither Hermit, nor Good Ganbu, nor Net Nanny, could have produced a concept that would, in whatever way,have been able to rival the Confucius Peace Prize. Not even close.

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Related
Confucius Prize could be weapon in battle of ideas, Global Times, Nov 17, 2010