Taiwan has pulled eight movies from China’s leading international film festival, an official said yesterday, citing concerns that festival organizers could use the occasion to assert Beijing’s sovereignty over Taiwan.
The Taipei Film Commission withdrew the works from the Shanghai International Film Festival after noticing that organizers of a recent TV festival in Shanghai identified a Taiwanese TV series as originating in “Taiwan, China,” said Anne Lu, a publicist for the commission.
The commission also canceled a news conference and party featuring Taiwanese filmmakers.
“We are worried that a similar situation to the TV series will recur,” Lu told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.
The eight films are Monga (艋舺), Au Revoir Taipei (一頁台北), Hear Me (聽說), More Than Close (近在咫尺), Orz Boys (囧男孩), Yang Yang (陽陽), Three Times (最好的時光) and Tonight Nobody Goes Home (今天不回家).
In other cross-strait news, Taiwanese travel agencies said China has canceled a controversial visa restriction on bald Taiwanese visitors.
Xiamen’s ban on bald people applying for one-year multiple-entry permits was canceled earlier this year, the Travel Agent Association said.
“It would probably have raised the question of discrimination if Chinese customs officials were to ask visitors to remove their wigs,” association spokesman Roger Hsu (?y) said, adding that the rule had mainly applied to frequent business travelers.
The Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) quoted unnamed travel agents as saying that Chinese authorities were concerned that “it was easier for bald people to disguise themselves.”
South Korea has adjusted its electronic arrival card system to no longer list Taiwan as a part of China, a move that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said would help facilitate exchanges between the two sides. South Korea previously listed “Taiwan” as “Taiwan (China)” in the drop-down menus of its online arrival card system, where people had to fill out where they came from and their next destination. The ministry had requested South Korea make a revision and said it would change South Korea’s name on Taiwan’s online immigration system from “Republic of Korea” to “Korea (South),” should the issue not be
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