2009 Nobel Peace Prize Nobel Committee. A "Wall Street Journal" editorial, noting Obama's comment that the world's problems "can't be met by any one leader or any one nation", opined, "What this suggests to us—and to the Norwegians—is the end of what has been called 'American exceptionalism'. This is the view that U.S. values have universal application and should be promoted without apology, and defended with military force when necessary. Put in this context, we wonder if most Americans will count this peace-of-the-future prize as a compliment." "Washington Post" columnist Michael Gerson wrote that the committee members "have forfeited any claim to seriousness. Peace—the
2010 Nobel Peace Prize of the 65 invited (the People's Republic of China and 19 other nations declined invitations). China's official news agency, Xinhua, attacked the West for its "Cold-War or even colonial mentality" and for daring to "regard themselves as the judge, the teacher [who] assume that they can forever distort the fact and block the truth by using political maneuvers." Strong rhetoric and denunciations of the West continued from official sources until after the ceremony. Liu was the first person of Chinese nationality to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and the first to be awarded a Nobel Prize of any kind