BEIJING Wed Jun 25, 2014 8:32am EDT
Workers prepare the Nobel Peace Prize laureate exhibition ”I Have No Enemies” for Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo at the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo December 9, 2010. REUTERS/Toby Melville
(Reuters) – China on Wednesday dismissed as a “farce” and a “smear” a vote by a United States panel of lawmakers to rename a Washington road in front of its embassy after imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo.
Republican Frank Wolf from Virginia submitted the amendment to the annual State Department spending bill, instructing Secretary of State John Kerry to rename the street as “No.1, Liu Xiaobo Plaza”, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday.
“Some people from the United States have used so-called human rights and the Liu Xiaobo case to engage in this meaningless sensationalism,” China’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a daily news briefing.
“It is nothing more than an attempt to smear China. We think this is purely a farce.”