BEIJING — China's campaign to vilify this year's recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize and sabotage the award ceremony showed signs of backfiring today, as criticism of Beijing rose and the imprisoned Chinese dissident seemed to be turning into a celebrity.

While China has successfully pressured more than a dozen countries not to attend Friday's ceremony to honor Liu Xiaobo and began blocking foreign media coverage of the event on the Internet today, analysts said its efforts also appeared to be galvanizing the West.

Despite the criticism of Beijing's response, China remains too big and too important to be shunned for long: Its role as the world's factory floor rules and banker to the West rule out both political and economic retaliation.

Amnesty International said members of Norway's Chinese community were being pressured by Chinese diplomats to join anti-Nobel protests planned for Friday and had been threatened with retaliation if they failed to appear.

In China, Liu's wife, Liu Xia, and dozens of friends, colleagues and sympathizers are under house arrest or tight surveillance to prevent them from attending the ceremony.

Liu, a 54-year-old literary critic and democracy advocate, is serving an 11-year prison sentence for subversion handed down last year after he co-authored a bold appeal for human rights and political reform. He has in recent weeks been transformed into a source of curiosity to young, Internet-savvy Chinese.