Beijing, Dec 10 (IANS): It is unfair to force a literary idealist like Nobel Laureate Mo Yan to talk about China's freedom of speech or human rights, a Chinese daily said Monday.

"The Nobel Prize for literature should not be a political device that the West uses to attack China," the Global Times article said.

Mo Yan, winner of 2012 Nobel Prize laureate in Literature, attended the awards ceremony in Stockholm last week.

"However, discussion about him seems to focus on politics rather than literature.

"People should stop pressing Mo. He has already faced many questions he would have preferred to avoid," said the daily.

The daily said that many expected Mo to talk about politics. "This is a sad day for literature. It seems that literature is worth nothing if it does not serve a political master".

The daily said that Mo's work represents a milestone, not only because he won the Nobel Prize for Literature, but also because his prize represents a breakthrough for tolerance and mutual respect between China's reality and Western values.

"In the past, it was those opposed to China's system who have won the Nobel Prize. The decisions made by the Nobel Committees often have political aspects. They seem to have become the bargaining chip that the West uses to confront China," it added.

It went on to say that after Mo won the prize, "many forces wanted to use him as political leverage".

"It is not that Mo's victory has nothing to do with politics. An influential event must have embedded political meaning," said the daily.

Mo's behaviour after his victory shows that he would like to minimize the political influence of his prize.

"It is unfair to force a literary idealist to talk about China's freedom of speech or human rights. The Nobel Prize for Literature should not be a political device that the West uses to attack China.

"Unexpectedly, Mo has become a window through which the world sees China," said the article.