Taiwan on Thursday rejected mainland China’s plan for the Olympic torch to pass through the island in a foretaste of the likely political tensions between Taipei and the mainland in the run-up to next year’s Olympics.
Beijing said on Thursday that the Olympic torch would enter Taiwan from Ho Chi Minh City and leave it for Hong Kong.
But Tsai Chen-wei, head of the Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee, said: “This plan intends to compromise our sovereignty and is unacceptable to us.”
China is likely to argue that its inclusion of Taiwan is a gesture of goodwill towards the self-ruled island over which it claims sovereignty. But Taipei said the Olympic torch was being abused as a pro-unification propaganda stunt.
China’s official media listed Taipei as a stop on the torch’s “domestic route” along with Hong Kong and Macao, while cities outside China were listed as part of the “international route”.
“This is the worst-case scenario. They are humiliating us,” said a senior Taiwanese official.
China’s insistence that Taiwan is not a sovereign nation has forced the island to take part in Olympic activities under the name of “Chinese Taipei”.
Taiwan government officials said Beijing now intended to lower its status further by calling it “China, Taipei”.
“The two sides are locked in a propaganda war, and there is no mutual trust,” said George Tsai, an expert on cross-Strait relations. “This is part two of the Panda saga.”
When China offered two giant pandas to Taiwan two years ago, it said they were a symbol of its “goodwill” towards the island, but Taiwan rejected them.
Rejecting the torch will be much more difficult for Taiwan to explain than refusing a pair of pandas.
“No IOC member has ever refused to let the Olympic torch in and I appeal to the government to not let sports fall victim to ideology,” said Huang Chih-hsiung, a Taekwondo silver medallist and lawmaker of Taiwan’s opposition Kuomintang.
