As for an apology from the Taiwanese participants at the WCG, Tseng says plainly "apologize for what?"
Aztec is equally defiant. "There's no way we will apologize to the Chinese team, or anyone for that matter. We were never notified of rules relating to flags by the WCG," said Chen Hsiu-fen (陳秀芬), marketing director at Aztec.
Chen added that the WCG had previously penned an apology on behalf of Taiwan and posted it on its Web site without Aztec's permission. "We demanded that they remove that announcement because we didn't even write it -- and we will not write one like it for that matter."
Negotiations are ongoing between Aztec and the WCG over how to explain the issue and the wording of the announcement that is now on the Web site, which calls for an apology.
"The flag issue cuts to the core of cross-strait relations. China takes it very seriously and will use every opportunity to launch a protest when there is a violation to assert its political stance," said Joseph Wu (吳釗燮), deputy director of the Institute for International Relations at National Chengchi University.
The flag has been a bone of contention recently at other events as well.
At the opening ceremony of the 2001 AFC Women's Soccer Championship two weeks ago, Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) begged spectators to not bring the nation's flag to the stadium. His request predictably had the opposite effect of encouraging boisterous protests and flag-waving.
And in October Chinese participants at the Ninth Asian Roller Skating Competition in Taitung threatened to withdraw from the event, having balked at the sight of their host nation's flag outside the competition venue. All Taiwan flags, however, had been removed from inside the stadium as required. The Chinese participants had even asked in advance that workers at their hotel remove any Taiwan flags from sight before their arrival.
"Any form of interaction with China, even in sports, and apparently computer games as well, is immediately politicized," Wu said.
The WCG organizing committee adopts the view that the flag issue is not a trivial matter. Steve Seo, the cyber games' marketing communications manager, was adamant that there had a been a blatant violation of rules, but struck a diplomatic tone. "Taiwan agreed to join as Chinese Taipei, so it must abide by the relevant rules. But we have made it clear to [the Taiwanese participants] that we want to handle this matter as friends for the sake of the gamers involved."
Seo said they had agreed to Taiwan's demand that the apology written on their behalf without their knowledge be removed from the Web site and that the English wording of the "important announcement" currently on the WCG Web site was incorrect, and that the organizing body wished only to "express its regret," rather than extract an apology from Chinese Taipei over Tseng's patriotic outburst. He attributed the error to a "cultural difference."
For his part, Tseng remains nonplussed by the turmoil triggered by his flag waving, in part because he won about US$35,000, not bad for a high-school dropout. Now he says he plans go back to school, improve his English and hopefully get into college. The money, after giving some to his teammates, will go to the bank.
Winning, he said, had changed his life in small ways, but the controversy had left him unmoved. In as close to a political statement as he could muster, Tseng said "I didn't think about China before all this, and I don't think about China now."
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