Premier Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄) said yesterday that the government still hoped the Olympic torch could come to Taiwan, as long as the nation's sovereignty is not compromised.
Chang was responding to media speculation that should the torch standoff continue until the deadline reportedly set by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), 7am today, it would mean the breakdown of talks and an end to any hope of the torch coming to Taiwan.
Cabinet spokesman Shieh Jhy-wey (謝志偉) said that faced with China's lack of respect for democracy, the government had "made all possible preparations" for a breakdown in the talks.
Sports Affairs Council Vice Chairman and spokesman Lee Kao-hsiang (
He said that after Jiang Xiaoyu (蔣效愚), executive vice president of the Beijing Olympic organizing committee, said on Sept. 6 that Taipei would be included as an overseas city on the torch relay route, Taipei had accepted the arrangement.
But China then at the last minute added other conditions, including that no national flags or emblems of the Republic of China (ROC) should appear, nor should the ROC national anthem be heard while the torch is in Taiwan.
Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee Chairman Tsai Chen-wei (蔡辰威), who has been negotiating on the matter over the past six months, expressed hope that the situation could still be resolved.
He said the IOC hoped the torch could go through Taiwan and had indeed set today as the deadline for the talks but admitted that unless both sides could come to an agreement on the outstanding issues, he saw little hope that the talks can go on.
Beijing announced in April its planned route for the torch relay. According to Beijing's plan, the torch was to enter Taiwan from Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam before heading on to Hong Kong.
Taipei rejected the planned route at the time on the grounds that it downgraded Taiwan's status as a sovereign state.
Taiwan initially requested that the torch arrive and exit via a country other than China but accepted Beijing's route plan after China agreed to designate the Taiwan leg of the relay as part of the overseas route and to address Taiwan as Chinese Taipei rather than Taiwan, China, in Olympics-related documents.
STAY CAUTIOUS: Rain is expected to begin easing this afternoon, but a CWA forecaster said that if the storm stalls or loops on its approach, heavy winds are likely Typhoon Champi, which caused widespread damage and injuries, and prompted road closures and evacuations across Taiwan yesterday, is expected to continue to bring heavy rain this morning, with up to 900mm of rain forecast for mountainous areas of New Taipei City, Taoyuan and Yilan County, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. At one point a super typhoon and one of the strongest storms in the Pacific this year, Champi was packing gusts of about 191kph near its center as of 8:30pm, the CWA said. Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung, Taoyuan, Hsinchu city and county, Taichung; and Yilan, Miaoli, Changhua, Nantou, Yunlin
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday urged China not to exploit typhoons to assert jurisdiction over the Taiwan Strait. The CGA issued the remarks after it found that China was shadowing eight Japan Coast Guard ships that sheltered in Taiwan proper’s western waters due to Typhoon Champi. Eight Japan Coast Guard (JCG) vessels sailed southward along the Taiwan Strait median line from 6am on Thursday, reaching waters southwest of Penghu County’s Cimei Island (七美島), outside Taiwan’s contiguous zone, which extends 24 nautical miles (44.4km) from the territorial sea baseline, it said. As the Japanese ships prepared for the typhoon, they were followed by
Taiwanese gymnast Tang Chia-hung (唐嘉鴻) on Sunday won gold in the men’s horizontal bar final at the Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Tang scored 14.966 in the final. He had advanced to the final in second place with a score of 14.566 points in qualifying, with a difficulty score of 6.000 and an execution score of 8.566. In the final, he raised his difficulty score to 6.600, the highest among the eight finalists. Although he did not fully steady himself on landing, his score was still enough to claim the gold medal. Taiwan had previously won two silver medals and
TOTAL COVERAGE: Champi’s outer band is expected to blanket the entire nation, with the center coming closest tonight or tomorrow before leaving tomorrow evening School and work across most of the nation has been canceled today, as Typhoon Champi is expected to skirt the northeast edge of Taiwan proper. As of 9pm, all municipalities except for Kinmen County had announced cancelations. Taitung County last night announced closures on Green Island (綠島) and Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼), but did not announce for the rest of the county until 6am today. Stock market settlements scheduled for today would be postponed to the next business day, the Taiwan Stock Exchange said. The announcements came after the Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday expanded its land warning for Champi to 19 regions
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