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The Hillhttp://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/131797-gop-sponsor-every-reason-to-believe-resolution-on-chinese-nobel-winner-coming-to-floor-next-weekA resolution likely to anger China will come to the floor in the lame-duck session, the Republican sponsor said Thursday evening after a conversation with Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, introduced a resolution with 11 bipartisan co-sponsors before the Thanksgiving break to honor Chinese dissident and human-rights activist Liu Xiaobo. October's announcement that Liu would be the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize Dec.
10 in Oslo, Norway, sparked a fierce reaction from China: Vice Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai said governments would have to "take responsibility for the consequences" if they showed support for Liu.
Smith's resolution had racked up 29 co-sponsors by Thursday. The congressman told The Hill that support for the measure, which congratulates the democracy advocate on his Nobel prize and "honors Liu Xiaobo's promotion of democratic reform in China, and the courage with which he has bore repeated imprisonment by the Government of China," was "very easy" to get and given more time he "quickly could have probably gotten 100 members on it."
The resolution was referred to Foreign Affairs, but Smith said he was confident about it being on the hectic lame-duck schedule after a "very nice" conversation with Pelosi on Thursday.
"I have every reason to believe it will come up next week," Smith said. Her office said that the Speaker supports Smith's resolution.
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