Wall Street Journal - October 24, 2008
Geoffrey A. Fowler, geoffrey.fowler@wsj.com

The move could lead to tense meetings between the leaders, who are expected to discuss trade barriers, the financial crisis, climate change and energy security. Meanwhile, European Commission President Jos Manuel Barroso said Thursday that China should do more to help in the international financial crisis.

Chinese activist Hu Jia at a cafe in Beijing in March 2006.

The dissident, 35-year-old Hu Jia, won the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize for his efforts to call attention to China's human-rights challenges. The award "firmly and resolutely acknowledges the daily struggle for freedom of all Chinese human-rights defenders," said the Parliament's president, Hans-Gert Pottering.

The award came despite warnings from Chinese officials that they would consider it an affront. "To present this type of prize to a criminal amounts to interference with China's judicial sovereignty, and also shows disrespect towards human rights," said spokesman Qin Gang, of China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, before the announcement.

"We oppose the use of the human-rights issue to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries," he added. "Hu Jia is a criminal found guilty by the Chinese judicial apparatus for instigating subversion of the state."

Mr. Hu, an advocate for environmental and HIV/AIDS causes, used the Internet to report and distribute information about alleged abuses in China ahead of this year's Beijing Olympics. In April, he was sentenced to 3 years in prison for "inciting subversion against the state." He has been in prison since late December, after months of house arrest.

Mr. Hu's wife, Zeng Jinyan, also an activist, is under surveillance in Beijing. She has said that Mr. Hu, who suffers from cirrhosis, is in very poor health in prison.

Mr. Hu became famous in the dissident community while blogging from his home prison. Friends have wondered why he was allowed to keep his Internet connection.

During their house arrest last year, the couple made a 30-minute film, available on YouTube, about their experiences, detailing the activities of the eight plainclothes police officers who watched their apartment. The two would occasionally taunt their captors. Yet Mr. Hu, who narrates the video, also painted a sympathetic portrait of the police he got to know. At one point, Mr. Hu says that an officer complained to him about having to watch Mr. Hu over the Chinese New Year holiday, so he made him some dumplings as a gift.

Phelim Kine, an Asia researcher for the New York-based Human Rights Watch, said the award was a reminder to the Chinese that major trading partners are still willing to raise human rights alongside discussions about economic and trade. "Human rights must be part of the conversation between friendly trading partners, not simply an issue that is put in a box and dusted off at annual human-rights dialogs," he said.

China and Europe have tightened ties in recent years, and the European Union is now China's biggest trading partner. Its imports from China have grown by around 21% per year for the past five years, totaling 231 billion euros($296 billion) in goods last year. Europe last year exported 72 billion euros in goods to China.

It wasn't clear whether Mr. Hu or Ms. Zeng would be allowed to travel to Strasbourg in December to pick up the award and its 50,000 euros stipend.

The Sakharov Prize is named for the late Soviet physicist Andrei Sakharov. It is awarded annually to individuals or organizations who have made an important contribution to human rights or democracy.

Mr. Hu also was considered one of the main contenders for the Nobel Peace Prize this year. Human-rights groups championed Mr. Hu as a symbol of the opportunities that the Internet provides for Chinese to assert their rights. Armed with his Google email account, blogs and Skype account, Mr. Hu documented harassment and detention of dissidents, often acting as a human hub for dissident information.

In a speech in Beijing on Thursday ahead of the Asia-Europe Meeting, Mr. Barroso said he agreed with China's view that its contribution to the world financial crisis is its fast economic growth. But he said China's large economy and important foreign-exchange reserves mean it "could and should have a greater say in international financial institutions."

ùAaron Back in Beijing contributed to this article.

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