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Taiwan rejects Beijing's claim on torch consensus

Taiwan's rejection of Beijing's proposed route for next year's Olympic torch relay is not an issue of "credibility" but of "sovereignty," a senior official said yesterday.

Taiwan -- not China -- should be the one to say it was surprised at Beijing's announcement on Thursday that the Olympic torch would be arriving in Taiwan from Vietnam before traveling to Hong Kong and Macau, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Vice Chairman Johnnason Liu (劉德勳) said at a press conference yesterday afternoon.

Liu made the comments in the wake of Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (BOCOG) vice president Jiang Xiaoyu's (蔣效愚) remarks that he was surprised at Taiwan's rejection of the planned torch relay.

He accused Taiwan of a "perfidious betrayal of trust" by reneging on an agreement to host a stop on next year's Beijing Olympic torch relay.

Jiang said the BOCOG had been discussing the relay with Taiwan sports officials since November and had received a letter detailing Taipei's agreement to the route on March 27.

"China has a fine tradition of keeping promises," Jiang told a news conference yesterday. "We do not agree with such perfidious betrayals of trust."

However, the BOCOG last week received another letter from Taiwan's Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee (CTOC) chairman Tsai Chen-wei (蔡辰威) indicating that there was a problem.

"The current development of many issues are out of our sports community's control. [Taiwanese] authorities require that the torch must go in and out of Taipei through a third party," Jiang said, quoting from the letter.

"We still hope the Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee and its authorities ... will uphold the consensus they agreed upon and the route that has been approved by the International Olympic Committee [IOC]," Jiang said.

However, Liu rebutted Jiang's claim by providing detailed information on the negotiation process over the torch relay.

Liu said that on Feb. 12, Tsai went to Beijing to attend a meeting and was given a briefing on the torch relay route. Taiwan was told that the Olympic torch would be arriving in Taiwan from Vietnam before traveling to Hong Kong.

Tsai presented Beijing's proposal to Taiwanese authorities, and on March 27 Taiwan sent a letter to Beijing saying it would not object to the plan as long as China did not use it to belittle Taiwan, the information from the council said.

But Beijing has changed its tune, Liu said.

Liu told the news conference that Taiwan later discovered that China had started spreading propaganda, saying that Taiwan would be the torch's first stop within China. China also called Taiwan "Taipei, China," instead of using its formal title as a member of the International Olympic Committee, "Chinese Taipei."

The CTOC therefore sent a letter on April 20 protesting the use of the torch relay route for political purposes and saying that Taiwan could not accept China's attempt to deny its sovereignty, Liu said.

"To avoid a situation in which the torch is described as traveling from `Taipei, China' to `Hong Kong, China,' we asked that the torch enter and exit Taiwan through third countries," the letter said.

But Beijing ignored the request and announced the route on Thursday evening, Liu said.

"A Hong Kong anchor immediately said in a Thursday evening news broadcast that Taipei would be the first stop of the route of the torch in China," Liu said, adding that such examples had surfaced repeatedly over the past month.

Taiwan rejected the arrival of the torch by the arranged route to protect the nation's sovereignty and dignity, Liu said.

"But we will continue to negotiate the torch relay route and to monitor Beijing's attitude about it," Liu said.

President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) yesterday said Beijing should consider the torch route that Tokyo used in 1964, which would entail sending the flame to Taiwan from a country other than China and passing it on from Taiwan to yet another country.

At a separate event, Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) yesterday said it was the government's policy that Taiwan must not be insulted or belittled through welcoming the Olympic torch.

"Taiwan is a member of the International Olympic Committee. As a member of the committee, we must be treated equally and with respect," Su said. "Unfortunately, China has been seeking all kinds of opportunities to degrade and belittle us. This is unacceptable."

The premier said that the government had been trying to negotiate the issue, but China rejected any such talks.

Su said that Taiwan's athletes would withdraw from the 2008 Olympics if China belittled Taiwan in any way, such as referring to the country as "China, Taipei."

"We will participate under the name `Chinese Taipei,' but we will never accept the name `China, Taipei,'" he said.

Taiwan's rejection marked the first time that an IOC member has declined to be included in the relay route since the torch relay started in 1920 for the Olympics in Brussels.

An analyst in Taiwan said that Beijing could easily settle the issue by agreeing to have the torch come to Taipei from Pyongyang, North Korea, before continuing to Ho Chi Minh City.

China's media heralded the planned route as the "Relay of Friendship."

In addition to Taiwan's objections to the route, the proposal also sparked an outcry from Tibetan independence activists, who slammed the IOC for helping China reinforce its control over Tibet.

Activists are angry that Tibet will be included in the relay, which will pass through Lhasa and scale Mount Everest.

Five US citizens staged a protest at Everest base camp on Wednesday to call for the Himalayan region's independence.

additional reporting by Jimmy Chuang

also see stories:
Tibet protesters to be expelled
Editorial: Good riddance to the Olympic torch

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