Perhaps somewhere in our universe of infinite possibilities there is a planet on which Robert Mugabe, who has presided mostly ruinously over Zimbabwe for decades, has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Here on planet earth, he must be content with the Chinese “equivalent” — the so-called Confucius Prize, bequeathed by a Hong Kong-based association.

The committee of what has been dubbed the “anti-Nobel Peace Prize” praised Mr Mugabe, 91, for his nation-building and service to pan-Africanism. The prize was established five years ago in petulant response to the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo, an imprisoned Chinese dissident who has advocated greater democracy in China. Previous recipients include Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, and Cuba’s former leader Fidel Castro. The choice of Mr Mugabe cements the prize’s reputation as a one-fingered salute to western values.

The award is a small, and somewhat bizarre, example of a broader trend. Slowly but surely, China’s Communist party is seeking to establish a parallel narrative to the western-centric view of the world. For most of the past century, American concepts of democracy, the sovereignty of the individual and the rule of law have been seen as universal. China is beginning to challenge that. Its creeds, absorbed over thousands of years of keeping a continental-sized state intact, tend more towards stability and strong government. For Beijing, the past 30 years demonstrate that material progress and competent leadership are more important than democracy in the creation of human welfare.