To what lows would China stoop to protect its already tarnished image and save face? Over the years, we’ve seen a lot of knee-jerk reactions out of China when it comes to projecting its prowess — the Tiananmen Square Massacre, the mass roundup of Falun Gong practitioners, the “Anti-Secession” Law and shrill reactions to US arms sales to Taiwan — but Wednesday’s twist of fate in the women’s taekwondo event at the Asian Games in Guangzhou, China, really takes the cake.
Officials disqualified Taiwanese taekwondo athlete Yang Shu-chun (楊淑君) for wearing electronic socks that had passed inspections prior to the event, sending her packing just as she was beating her Vietnamese opponent Vu Thi Hau 9-0.
What prompted this? On the surface, it would seem that Chinese authorities didn’t want to see a Taiwanese athlete do well in a tournament they were organizing.
The World Taekwondo Federation (WTF) had certified the brand of electronic socks that led to Yang’s disqualification. She said she had brought two pairs of WTF-sanctioned socks, but officials rejected one pair, so she was allowed to wear the other pair in the event. The chief judge had examined her socks before the match began, so it seems unreasonable that she was disqualified in the first round of her bout with Vu.
Taiwanese anchorwoman Chen Yi-an (陳怡安), an Olympic taekwondo gold medalist, likely hit on the truth when she angrily denounced the decision, saying she suspected a plot to discredit Yang because she was likely to meet Chinese competitor Wu Jingyu (吳靜鈺) — who beat Yang at the 2008 Beijing Olympics — if she won against Vu.
Now it seems judges at the Asian Games eliminated the risk that the “pride of China” would be beaten by the “pride of Taiwan.”
The controversy over this decision is not going to die down soon, even though the five-member WTF technical committee confirmed the disqualification and the Asian Games arbitration committee rejected a formal protest from the Taiwanese delegation.
In a rare show of unity, Taiwanese lawmakers across party lines have condemned this decision as unfair. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Huang Chih-hsiung (黃志雄), a former taekwondo athlete, called the ruling “inconceivable and ridiculous,” while Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) urged the Sports Affairs Council to do everything it could to overturn the decision, “even if it means we have to boycott the Games.”
Chinese authorities have demonstrated time and again their lack of respect for Taiwan, which they consider a renegade “province” that should bow to their every whim.
Most of the time, this disrespect is manifested in greater forms — stealing Taiwan’s allies, exerting economic or military pressure and rejecting Taiwan’s UN membership bids.
However, sometimes its attitude toward Taiwan is put on display in much smaller, yet equally unsubtle ways — this time, seemingly twisting the rules to have a legitimate athlete disqualified from the Asian Games.
In the first year of his second term, US President Donald Trump continued to shake the foundations of the liberal international order to realize his “America first” policy. However, amid an atmosphere of uncertainty and unpredictability, the Trump administration brought some clarity to its policy toward Taiwan. As expected, bilateral trade emerged as a major priority for the new Trump administration. To secure a favorable trade deal with Taiwan, it adopted a two-pronged strategy: First, Trump accused Taiwan of “stealing” chip business from the US, indicating that if Taipei did not address Washington’s concerns in this strategic sector, it could revisit its Taiwan
The stocks of rare earth companies soared on Monday following news that the Trump administration had taken a 10 percent stake in Oklahoma mining and magnet company USA Rare Earth Inc. Such is the visible benefit enjoyed by the growing number of firms that count Uncle Sam as a shareholder. Yet recent events surrounding perhaps what is the most well-known state-picked champion, Intel Corp, exposed a major unseen cost of the federal government’s unprecedented intervention in private business: the distortion of capital markets that have underpinned US growth and innovation since its founding. Prior to Intel’s Jan. 22 call with analysts
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) challenges and ignores the international rules-based order by violating Taiwanese airspace using a high-flying drone: This incident is a multi-layered challenge, including a lawfare challenge against the First Island Chain, the US, and the world. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) defines lawfare as “controlling the enemy through the law or using the law to constrain the enemy.” Chen Yu-cheng (陳育正), an associate professor at the Graduate Institute of China Military Affairs Studies, at Taiwan’s Fu Hsing Kang College (National Defense University), argues the PLA uses lawfare to create a precedent and a new de facto legal
International debate on Taiwan is obsessed with “invasion countdowns,” framing the cross-strait crisis as a matter of military timetables and political opportunity. However, the seismic political tremors surrounding Central Military Commission (CMC) vice chairman Zhang Youxia (張又俠) suggested that Washington and Taipei are watching the wrong clock. Beijing is constrained not by a lack of capability, but by an acute fear of regime-threatening military failure. The reported sidelining of Zhang — a combat veteran in a largely unbloodied force and long-time loyalist of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) — followed a year of purges within the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA)
RSS