Beijing (CNN) -- China is all set to give out its own first-ever peace prize Thursday, a move apparently to counter the Norwegian Nobel committee's choice of imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo as this year's laureate.
Organizers told CNN they will present the Confucius Peace Prize -- which comes with an award of $15,000 -- in Beijing to promote the ancient sage's philosophy, a day before the Nobel committee honors Liu in Oslo.
"China is a great nation that has been influenced by the Confucian concept of peace for a long time," said Tan Changliu, chairman of the awards committee. "We want to promote world peace from an Eastern perspective".
"Europe is full of small countries that had fought each other for centuries," he added. "We don't want to see people who don't understand peace to ruin the concept".
Tan declined to give details about his group -- other than saying it is a non-government organization -- or how the five-judge awards committee operated. CNN
