Fidel Castro wins China's peace prize

Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro was awarded China's Confucius Peace Prize for this year, state media reports said Thursday.

The award ceremony took place Tuesday in the campus of Peking University in Beijing. The Cuban students studying in China accepted the award on behalf of Castro as he could not attend the award function, Global Times reported.

"As Cuba's leader, when managing international relations, especially relations with the US, he did not use military force or violence to resolve controversies and disputes," the co-founder of the prize, Liu Zhiqin, was quoted as saying by the daily.

Foreign ministry spokesperson Hong Lei Thursday said the award was "set up by the civilian institute. It merely expresses their own aspirations on world peace".

Named for ancient China's famous sage, the prize was launched in 2010 after the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to imprisoned Chinese dissident writer Liu Xiaobo. It is portrayed as an alternative to the Nobel Prize.

Recipients of the award include former UN secretary general Kofi Annan and Russian President Vladimir Putin.