It was an undeniably bad week for the Chinese government.

It was riled into one of its periodic, highly touchy statements of self-righteousness when the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Liu Xiaobo. Mr Liu is a Chinese citizen, and former head in his country of that well-known dangerous organisation, PEN. In 2009, he was tried for “inciting subversion of state power” – thought crime, in other words. He is in prison for 11 years.

All hell broke loose on the announcement of the award. The Norwegian ambassador in Beijing was summoned by the Chinese government for a dressing down, and a stern warning that this would damage Norwegian-Chinese relations. Norway, for instance, has sold 10 million salmon to China in the last 22 years, a fact deemed worthy of a party to that festive nation. Anyway, the Norwegian ambassador limited himself to pointing out that the Nobel committee is not under the thumb of the national government, but has its own opinions – something unfamiliar to the Chinese government, I dare say.

Things look likely to get worse. Tomorrow, Tate Modern unveils its new Turbine Hall installation, one of the biggest honours in the art world. By chance, it has also chosen a Chinese dissident, Ai Weiwei. Mr Ai comes from a distinguished line of troublemakers – his father, Ai Qing, was imprisoned first by the nationalists, as a Communist, and then by the Communists, as a dissident. He plays a dangerous game with the government – he helped to design the celebrated “birds’ nest” stadium, with Herzog and de Meuron, for the Beijing Olympics, and was then very noisily critical about the festival.

An installation in the West consisted of the names of as many child victims of the 2008 Szechuan earthquake as he could discover – some 5,000, learnt by going from door to door. The Chinese authorities regard the numbers of death as a “national secret”, and Ai has been beaten up and kicked in the head by Chinese police as a consequence of his inquiries.

The Chinese authorities can be no more keen on the prospect of Ai’s installation than they are on Liu’s Peace Prize. I have a suggestion for them. They don’t seem to like the opinions of the rest of the world one bit. They often like to spare time from their busy days to lecture us on what we ought to have done, and whom we ought to reward. Instead of listening to Scandinavian opinions on human rights, why don’t they set up their own Chinese Government Human Rights Prize? They could award it, year after year, to any old executioner or apparatchik they liked. They can perfectly well celebrate their own choice of artists, too.

It is true that when Shanghai offered Ai Weiwei an exhibition, he entitled it “F*ck Off” and the authorities had to close it down. I expect they can find some more obedient fellow, however.