The European Parliament awarded its annual human rights prize yesterday to Hu Jia, a jailed Chinese dissident, defying a warning from Beijing that the move would seriously damage EU-Chinese relations.

The award for Mr Hu, an outspoken critic of human rights abuses in China who was jailed for three years in April on subversion charges, marks a public relations blow for Beijing just as it hosts a big gathering of Asian and European leaders. The two-day summit of leaders of the 43-nation Asia-Europe Meeting forum opens in Beijing today. After Mr Hu was short-listed for the parliament's €50,000 Sakharov Prize, China's ambassador to the EU warned in a letter that honouring the 35-year-old activist would "inevitably hurt the Chinese people once again and bring serious damage to China-EU relations".