OSLO (Reuters) - China on Monday canceled a meeting with a Norwegian minister because of the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s award of the peace prize to jailed dissident Liu Xiaobo, Oslo said.

Fisheries Minister Lisbeth Berg-Hansen and a delegation were already in Shanghai preparing for a long-scheduled meeting on Wednesday to discuss trade in seafood between the two countries when China canceled it, her ministry said.

China’s embassy in Oslo was not immediately available for comment.

Berg-Hansen will continue to take part in seminars and other events at the Expo 2010 in Shanghai, her ministry said. But she would no longer meet China’s vice-minister of fisheries on Wednesday in Beijing, said Ragnhild Imerslund, spokeswoman for Norway’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“We regret that our minister of fisheries’ meeting in Beijing has been canceled,” said Imerslund. “This cooperation is important for both countries and we believe it is important to continue it.”

She said Norway was not given an official explanation for the cancellation, though Norwegian officials earlier said it was a result of the Nobel committee’s choice of laureate.

“According to the (Norwegian) embassy in Beijing, which informed us, it is linked with the peace prize award,” Berg-Hansen was herself quoted as saying by Norwegian news agency NTB.

MORE REBUKES EXPECTED

Jan Egeland, executive director of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs think tank, said more rebukes could be on the way.

“I think we will see more of this,” Egeland said. “For an indefinite period, China will freeze political missions and visits and possibly trade delegations. It may go on for a few months or a year or so, but I don’t think it will be longer.”

Norwegian seafood exports to China have risen by 50 percent in the past year alone, reaching a value of 1.5 billion Norwegian crowns ($257.7 million) so far in 2010, said Egil Ove Sundheim, spokesman for the Norwegian Seafood Export Council.

He said seafood producers in Norway -- which is not a member of the European Union -- hoped for continued growth on the strength of a bilateral free trade agreement that China and Norway have been negotiating for the past two years.

Those talks could be the next Nobel casualty, Egeland said.

“I think there will still be an agreement but there will be delays,” he said.

“I don’t think they will cancel any contracts or slam sanctions on Norwegian exports to China,” Egeland added. “China wants to be a predictable trading partner. But they really want to send a message that they find the prize an intolerable interference in their internal affairs.”

China’s rapidly expanding middle class has developed a taste for Norwegian salmon in recent years, adapting it for use in traditional Chinese dishes, Sundheim said.

Norway and China are the world’s top two fish exporters, with China processing Norwegian salmon and exporting some of it to Japan.

On Friday China called the awarding of the Nobel to Liu “an obscenity” and warned Norway that it would hurt relations. It summoned Oslo’s envoy to Beijing on Friday after the Nobel announcement was made.