Liu Xia, the widow of Chinese dissident Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, is happy to have left China for Germany, saying, "Everything is fine," her younger brother told Kyodo News Wednesday.

Liu Xia, who had been under house arrest without legal cause by Chinese authorities since 2010, had a medical check-up at a hospital in Germany, amid concern that she is suffering severe physical and psychological distress.

"It's like a dream. Don't worry," Liu Xia was quoted as saying by her younger brother, Liu Hui.

(Liu Xia in Beijing in October 2010)

Although Liu Hui also wants to go to Germany, he said, "There is a legal problem," indicating that Chinese authorities have not allowed him to depart China.

Nobel Committee chairwoman Berit Reiss-Andersen on Tuesday released a statement calling on Liu Xia to "receive the Nobel Peace Prize for 2010 on behalf of her late husband," who died in July 2017.

Liu Xiaobo, a high-profile democracy campaigner, was not able to attend the prize award ceremony in Oslo, Norway, as he was detained in prison.

In Berlin, a ceremony is scheduled to be held on Friday to celebrate the first anniversary of Liu Xiaobo's death, with hopes growing that Liu Xia will participate in it.

According to her supporter, Liu Xia lives in a place that the German government has arranged. Given her health condition, Germany will not permit media to contact her for the time being.

Liu Xiaobo, an outspoken critic of China's Communist Party and a democracy advocate, died in hospital of liver cancer while serving an 11-year prison sentence for his involvement in drafting Charter 08, a manifesto calling for an end to one-party rule in China and for peaceful democratic reform.

(People hold welcome signs as they wait for Liu Xia at Berlin's airport on July 10)

Liu Xia was put under house arrest without trial after her husband won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010.

China claimed that Liu Xia's freedom of movement was not impeded. In a phone recording posted on the internet in May, Liu Xia was heard sobbing and hardly talking, apparently due to her frustration with the processing of her application to leave China.

Liu Xia left Beijing for Germany on Tuesday morning, a day after Chinese Premier Li Keqiang held a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin, where they are believed to have exchanged views on her departure. Liu Xia has a close friend in Germany.