Seventeen-year-old Tseng Jeng-cheng (曾政承) does not have the appearance of someone with an ardent political agenda. That's because he says he doesn't have one. The World Cyber Games Organizing Committee and the Chinese government, however, see matters differently.
On Dec. 9, Tseng won first place at the World Cyber Games (WCG) in Seoul, beating a Korean finalist at the game "Age of Empires II: The Conquerors."
The trouble came when, after delivering the final fatal blow in the game, Tseng rose from his seat and declared at the top of his voice "Taiwan No. 1!" and waved a national flag. It is a violation of the games' rules to display Taiwan's national flag.
This impulsive victory celebration was enough to incite a Chinese reporter from Chinese Central Television covering the event to rush the stage and object loudly to Tseng's display of Taiwan's flag. The row also invited an angry phone call from the Chinese embassy in Seoul to the WCG Organizing Committee, which in turn demanded an apology from Taiwan's team, participating under the name Chinese Taipei. The Chinese WCG team also demanded an explanation and apology.
In an "important announcement" on the WCG Web site, the WCG organizing committee says: "Although we send our congratulations to the winning player, we cannot condone the celebration which the Chinese Taipei team shared after this victory.
"We denounce this act by the Chinese Taipei team and strongly request an apology from them, as it has so blatantly put the entire World Cyber Games and all its participants in an undeserved and unwarranted position of political difficulty.
"There is, and never will be, any room for insensitivity to political or social issues or assertion of political agendas."
Contacted Tuesday by telephone at a cybercafe in Taichung, where he was playing computer games, Tseng expressed surprise at the demand for an apology.
"Why do the Chinese get so worked up over a computer game? They're ridiculous."
"When I won I got up and shouted something like `Taiwan No. 1,' and then this Chinese reporter started making noise, but we ignored him and got off stage and walked away," Tseng said. "At the time I didn't know what he was harping on about."
Tseng is entirely disinterested in the political complexity of the situation, which touches the most sensitive nerve in relations between Taiwan and China, namely the issue of Taiwan's sovereignty.
The Chinese reporter's complaint, however, was not unfounded.
The World Cyber Games portends to be a cyber version of the Olympics and as such is conducted in the spirit of the Games. This includes Taiwan joining under the name Chinese Taipei and under a generic Olympic flag as dictated in an agreement Taiwan signed with the International Olympic Committee in 1981.
The agreement furthermore binds Taiwan to use the name Chinese Taipei at all international events when Chinese teams take part in competition and requires the Taiwanese side to convene a conference to explain these rules to athletes, coaches and managers before all competitions.
The responsibility to explain the rules of WCG participation to the Taiwanese gamers would fall on Aztec Technology, the cyber cafe chain that sponsored the Taiwanese team, but Tseng says he was never informed of the rules prohibiting the waving of Taiwan's flag.
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