Human rights are universal

China has done all it could to sabotage the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the dissident Liu Xiaobo today in Oslo. But on the long term the country will have to grant its citizens human rights, writes the daily De Standaard: "China faces the extremely hard task of balancing economic growth and political stability while avoiding chaos. That is no mean feat, bearing in mind the threat of an ageing population engendered by the one-child policy, the increasing gap between rich and poor, the lack of adequate social security, corruption and the growing environmental problems. In addition it is a fact that people whose living standards are rising and start to form a middle class will also demand political rights on the long term. Human rights are not a Western creation, they are universal. China can prevent the Nobel Prize from being awarded today, but it can't prevent rivers from flowing to the sea."

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