HONG KONG — Last October, when the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the 2010 Nobel Peace prize to imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, official Chinese spokesmen waxed indignant. A spokesperson for the Beijing Municipal Higher People's Court, which had sentenced Liu to 11 years in prison on a charge of inciting subversion of state power, termed the committee's action "rude interference in China's judicial sovereignty."

Similarly, in 2009, after the arrest of Rio Tinto executive and Australian citizen Stern Hu, the Chinese foreign ministry spokesman warned Australians who were "making noise about this case" that it constituted "interference in China's judicial sovereignty."

Now, to some people, the shoe appears to be on the other foot as China prepares to try one of its own nationals for a crime committed overseas rather than allow that country to exercise its judicial sovereignty.