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China declared on Tuesday most nations supported its call to boycott this week's Nobel Peace Prize award ceremony for jailed dissident Liu Xiaobo, but host Norway said only a handful of countries' envoys will not attend.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said that more than 100 countries and organizations would stay away from Friday's events in Oslo for the pro-democracy activist that Beijing labels subversive and a criminal.
"As far as I know, at present, more than 100 countries and organisations have expressed explicit support for China opposing the Nobel Peace Prize, which fully shows that the international community does not accept the decision of the Nobel Committee," she told a regular news briefing.
Ms. Jiang declined to name those who she said would skip the ceremony.
"After the ceremony, you can see that the vast majority of the international community will not attend the ceremony. Some countries have resident missions in Norway, they will not send representatives to the ceremony," she said.
China has denounced Mr. Liu's award as an "obscenity" and has unleashed a torrent of diplomatic scorn towards Norway, with Beijing pressuring diplomats to boycott the ceremony.
But the Norwegian Nobel Committee said that only 19 states including China would miss the ceremony. The Nobel committee only sends invitations to envoys in Oslo.
With Mr. Liu serving an 11-year jail term, his wife under house arrest and many others prevented from travelling, nobody is expected to pick up the Nobel medal and $1.5-million award on his behalf.
Friday's ceremony will be the first time that a laureate under detention would not be formally represented at the awards gala since Nazi Germany barred pacifist Carl von Ossietzky from coming in 1935.
The Nobel Committee said in addition to China, countries declining invitations for the gala were: Russia, Kazakhstan, Colombia, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Serbia, Iraq, Iran, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Venezuela, the Philippines, Egypt, Sudan, Ukraine, Cuba and Morocco.
The committee has said China had mounted an unprecedented campaign to keep envoys from attending. "One of the reasons (for states' not coming) is undoubtedly China," Geir Lundestad, the executive secretary of the Nobel Committee, told Reuters.
Yet he said the Chinese claim that most nations would stay away was "a very curious way of stating things" because only the 65 countries with embassies in Norway were invited.
He said 44 embassies have said they will attend the ceremony, including those of South Korea, Japan, Indonesia, as well as big emerging states India, Brazil and South Africa.
Algeria and Sri Lanka did not reply to the Committee.
China has detained or placed under house arrest dozens of activists since Liu's award was announced in October, including his wife Liu Xia, who remains incommunicado, presumed at her apartment in Beijing.
Chinese police have prevented others from leaving the country, including artist Ai Weiwei, apparently fearful some would try and find their way to Norway.
"It is normal that some countries and organisations will not approve of and not attend the Nobel ceremony," said Pu Zhiqiang, a human rights lawyer.
"But this has no logical relationship to the real issue, which is whether or not those who want to attend are permitted to attend."
China has sent letters to foreign ministries and embassies urging diplomats to stay away from the ceremony and warned of "consequences" for those who support the pro-democracy activist.
"It's really unfortunate that China is using its political and economic clout to twist the arms of diplomats into not attending," said Corinna-Barbara Francis, China researcher for Amnesty International, adding it was not the kind of action a country with China's global presence should be taking.
Activists and dissidents greeted with disbelief China's claim that a majority of the international community supported its position on Mr. Liu.
"What absolute rubbish," Li Datong, a former journalist and one of the signatories of a petition in October calling on the government to release Liu, told Reuters.
"The Foreign Ministry has no shame. It's a lie, pure and simple, told without the slightest hint of embarrassment."
Spokeswoman Jiang reiterated that the Nobel Committee's awarding of the prize to "a criminal" like Mr. Liu was an affront to China's "legal sovereignty".
"All policies in China are for the interests of the majority of the Chinese people," she said. "We will not change because of some wind blowing the grass and because of the interference of some clowns who are anti-China."