WARSAW (AFP) - The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo should serve as a message to China Beijing it must respect fundamental values, Poland's Nobel laureate Lech Walesa said Friday.

"I am very satisfied by the decision of the Nobel committee. I consider it a challenge for China and the entire world," Walesa, the legendary leader of Poland's anti-communist Solidarity trade union, told AFP in a phone interview.

"The world must declare whether it is ready to help China enter a zone where there is respect for the principles and values" of democracy, Walesa said.

"China is a great state and we must respect it, but it must also observe the norms and values respected in the world at large," he added.

Poland's foreign ministry expressed "appreciation" for the Nobel committee's decision to honour Liu.

Walesa won the 1983 Nobel Peace Prize after striking a deal between Poland's communist regime and strikers at the Gdansk shipyard which gave birth to Solidarity, the first free labour union in the communist bloc.

After a 1981 communist party crackdown on Solidarity, the union negotiated a peaceful end to communism in Poland in 1989 under his leadership.