Liu, the first Chinese citizen to win the Nobel Peace Prize, is a 54-year-old writer imprisoned since December after authoring Charter 08, a manifesto signed by thousands seeking greater rights in the communist nation.

Wei Jingsheng -- who spent nearly two decades in prison and is often seen as the father of China's modern democracy movement -- said Liu was more acceptable to the Nobel committee and even Beijing because he worked within the system.

But Wei said China showed no sign of changing.

"Raising the reputation of moderate reformists would increase people's desire to cooperate with the government, thus helping stabilize the political situation in China and delaying the time when people overthrow the dictatorial government," Wei told AFP in Washington, where he lives in exile.

Wei, 60, a former electrician at the Beijing zoo, was formerly on death row after boldly putting up a poster seeking democracy in 1979. He was finally freed after intervention by US president Bill Clinton.

Wei was himself often tipped for the Nobel Peace Prize in the past. He said "tens of thousands" of Chinese other than Liu deserved the award including Gao Zhisheng, a missing human rights lawyer, and Chen Guangcheng, who exposed abuses in Beijing's one-child policy.

In a controversial move, a group of exiled Chinese -- not including Wei -- wrote an open letter to the Nobel committee calling Liu unsuitable for the prize.

Diane Liu, who blogs under the penname San Mei and helped organize the letter, faulted Liu for not highlighting the treatment of the Falungong spiritual movement, which she called China's worst human rights problem.

The Falungong says it has suffered systematic persecution, including imprisonment and death, since it was banned in 1999.

"The Nobel Prize is for people who speak for human rights. He is not that person," said Liu, who lives in Chicago. "He deceives the Western world because they don't read Chinese and they don't know how tricky the Chinese communist regime plays its game."

To be sure, many dissidents have saluted Liu Xiaobo. Harry Wu, a Washington-based activist who spent nearly two decades in Chinese labor camps, has led a campaign on social media urging his freedom.

"Liu Xiaobo didn't organize a party, he didn't take action, he just said what his ideals were and got 11 years in a prison camp. So that has exposed what the country is and what we can do," Wu said.

Timothy Cheek, an expert on Chinese intellectuals at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, said the Nobel committee faced an "invidious choice" in choosing only one dissident worthy of the prize.

Paradoxically, Cheek said that Liu may have had an advantage because he is in jail, giving the award more of an impact than if it had gone to a former prisoner such as Wei or Wu.

"Liu Xiaobo is an important Chinese intellectual because he does two things -- he criticizes the government and he lives in China. And in order to do that and not be dead, you have to make compromises," Cheek said.

"He's a democrat, he's a human rights activist -- that's what he's after. But he's willing to make tactical adjustments in order to be effective and the most important one has been remaining inside China," he said.

"Yes, he hasn't been as emphatic or hasn't addressed topics we have addressed internationally," Cheek said. "But we don't live in China and we don't have the police coming around the corner."

Representative Christopher Smith, who spearheaded a February letter by US lawmakers asking the Nobel committee to bestow the prize on Liu, Gao or Chen, said the award should be seen as commending a larger movement.

"Liu is a hero among heroes," said Smith, a Republican from New Jersey. "I think that in the Chinese gulags, word is already spreading like wildfire. It will give them all great hope that the world supports them."

earlier related report
Wife meets China's jailed Nobel peace laureate: activists
Jinzhou, China (AFP) Oct 10, 2010 - The wife of Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo met her jailed husband Sunday, activists said, apparently to inform him he had won the prestigious award amid a media blackout in China.

The couple met on Sunday afternoon, the Hong Kong-based Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy said in a faxed statement, citing Liu Xiaobo's mother-in-law.

Liu, the first Chinese citizen to win the Nobel Peace Prize, is a 54-year-old writer imprisoned since December after authoring Charter 08, a manifesto signed by thousands seeking greater rights in the communist nation.

Immediately after he was proclaimed the winner on Friday, his wife Liu Xia told AFP that police were arranging to take her to Liu's prison in northeast China, where she hoped to inform him of the award.

Since then her mobile phone has been switched off and her whereabouts unknown.

Liu Xiaobo's lawyers have also been unable to contact the Beijing-based Liu Xia since she disappeared into police custody Friday night.

"We have been unable to contact her, so we do not know where she is," lawyer Ding Xikui told AFP.

"We are concerned about her safety. We believe that they (police) are taking her to see Liu Xiaobo, but we have no way of confirming this."

Liu is serving an 11-year jail sentence for subversion at Jinzhou prison in the northeastern province of Liaoning.

Roads to the prison were blocked by police Sunday, with only officials or residents allowed into a large area around the jail.

Police and officials at the roadblock refused to tell journalists why they were not permitted to approach the prison and politely urged them to leave the area. Telephones at the prison went unanswered.

Liu is one of three people to have been awarded the prize while being jailed by their own government. The other two are Myanmar's Aung Sang Suu Kyi in 1991 and German pacifist Carl von Ossietzky in 1935.

The selection of Liu as this year's laureate has enraged the Chinese government, which called the dissident a "criminal" and slammed the award as a violation of Nobel ideals and a discredit to the Peace Prize.

Leaders around the world including US President Barack Obama -- last year's Nobel Peace Prize winner -- lauded the 2010 winner and called on the Chinese government to release him immediately.

Wife Liu Xia told AFP on Friday she was elated by the award and called for his immediate release from prison.

The Chinese Human Rights Defenders, an activist group organised through the Internet, said police had forcefully removed Liu Xia from Beijing as part of a campaign to suppress the news of Liu's award.

China's state-run media have only reported the government's angry denunciations.

Internet searches using the key-words "Nobel Peace Prize" and "Liu Xiaobo" brought up no results on Chinese web portals Sina and Sohu, while similar searches on Weibo, a Twitter-like service, also drew a blank.

Access to Google in mainland China has been patchy since the US Internet giant got embroiled in a dispute with Beijing over alleged cyberhacking of dissidents' email accounts.

"As expected, Chinese officials have pulled out all the stops to prevent citizens from learning that the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Liu Xiaobo," the Chinese Human Rights Defenders said in a statement.

"Officials ordered managers at China's four main domestic Internet portals Ten Cent, Sina, Sohu, and Net Ease to remove pages dedicated to the 2010 Nobel Prizes," it said.

On Friday night, police rounded up dozens of Liu's supporters in Beijing, Shanghai and other cities who had gathered to celebrate the win, activists said.

Up to 20 were said to have been rounded up in Beijing including prominent rights lawyer Xu Zhiyong and independent film-maker He Yang.

"This is a big headache for the government," rights lawyer Teng Biao told AFP.

"They don't want people to know this matter.... They don't want people gathering and celebrating over this," he said, while adding that some of those detained had since been released.

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