"You only have to look at the figures. The vast majority of countries invited will be represented," Nobel Institute director Geir Lundestad told AFP on Tuesday.

According to the Nobel Institute, 44 embassies have accepted invitations to the event while 19 have refused "for various reasons" and two have not replied.

Besides China, the countries who have declined to attend the ceremony in the Oslo city hall are: Afghanistan Colombia, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Pakistan, the Philippines, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Sudan, Tunisia, Ukraine, Venezuela and Vietnam.

Algeria and Sri Lanka had not yet responded to their invitations by the end of the day Monday.

China has threatened there will be "consequences" for countries that show their support for Liu, and China's foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu in Beijing told reporters Tuesday that "the vast majority of the international community will not attend the ceremony."

"More than 100 countries support us," she said, calling the members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee "clowns."

The Nobel Institute traditionally invites all ambassadors posted in Oslo to the Nobel prize ceremony.

Rights group Amnesty International's Asia-Pacific director Sam Zairi meanwhile accused China of "bullying" countries into submission.

"China has been arm-twisting behind the scenes to stop governments from attending the Nobel Prize ceremony, using a combination of political pressure and economic blackmail," he said in a statement.

"The fact that, despite the pressure and threats, the Chinese could only cajole a small minority of countries, reflects the unacceptable nature of their demands," he said, insisting "governments and international institutions must continue to resist this type of bullying."

His comments came a day after Yang Jianli, a Chinese dissident exiled in the United States and a representative of Liu's family, harshly criticised United Nations Human Rights commissioner Navi Pillay's decision not to attend the ceremony.

This was "a clear and unequivocal abdication of her responsibilities as High Commissioner, which I believe resulted from direct pressure from the Chinese government," Yang wrote, hinting both Pillay and Secretary General Ban Ki-moon should resign if they did not dare stand up to the Chinese regime.

Pillay's office in Geneva vehemently rejected accusations she had succumbed to Chinese pressure and insisted she could not attend the award ceremony because of a clash with another event for World Human Rights Day.

The Nobel organisers also stressed there were different reasons why some countries had declined their invitation.

"Among the 19 countries who have declined the invitation, you just have to look at the names to realise that their motives could be very varied," Lundestad said.

"Some have most probably bowed to pressure from China, but others have other reasons like a scheduled trip," he added.

Russia for instance has said scheduling difficulties rather than political considerations were keeping it away.

The Nobel Institute has also pointed out that when the largely uncontroversial 2008 prize was awarded to Martti Ahtisaari, 10 embassies did not attend.

Liu, a writer, was jailed in December 2009 for 11 years on subversion charges after co-authoring "Charter 08", a manifesto that spread quickly on the Internet calling for political reform and greater rights in China.

The laureate himself, who remains in prison, will not be able to attend and neither will his wife, Liu Xia, who has been held in house arrest since the prize was announced in October.

An empty chair, a photograph and one of his texts read by Norwegian actress Liv Ullman will represent Liu at the ceremony.

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