Beijing’s behavior was “out of control,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday after a Taiwanese-Spanish academic said that China’s embassy in Spain pressured the University of Salamanca to cancel a Taiwanese culture event.
“Today I decided to go public with the email #China’s embassy in Spain sent to coerce the University of #Salamanca into cancelling “#Taiwan Cultural Days” on October 2017,” Shiany Perez-Cheng (鄭夏霓) tweeted late on Saturday.
Perez-Chen is a professor of international relations at the university and a leading organizer of the university’s Taiwan Culture Day.
Photo from Shiany Perez-Cheng’s Twitter account
A letter attached to the tweet that Perez-Chen said was an English-language version of the embassy’s e-mail said: “Inviting to [sic] the so-called ‘Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs of Taiwan’ to lecture causes confusion and misunderstanding about the Taiwan problem.”
“There are many incorrect expressions in the cultural days’ program and in the promotional materials,” it said. “Those arguments do not fall in line with the Spanish government, who has long followed the ‘one China principle.’”
“We wouldn’t like your institution to be used by Taiwanese authorities as a platform for its political agenda, it would affect the university’s good relations with China,” it said.
The letter demanded that the university accept the “one China” principle and take measures to “avoid and eliminate the adverse effects.”
The defilement of a storied European university is the latest instance of China’s continued persecution of Taiwan, the ministry said in a statement.
Beijing’s hinderance of Taiwanese participation in free academic and cultural exchanges is “barbaric,” the ministry said, adding that the government was dismayed and angered.
Beijing’s all-out effort to squeeze Taiwan’s international space, instead of achieving “the union of souls across the [Taiwan] Strait” touted by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in March, would serve only to invite the “anger and even scorn for China of the Taiwanese,” the ministry said.
In his National Day Rally speech on Sunday, Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) quoted the Taiwanese song One Small Umbrella (一支小雨傘) to describe his nation’s situation. Wong’s use of such a song shows Singapore’s familiarity with Taiwan’s culture and is a perfect reflection of exchanges between the two nations, Representative to Singapore Tung Chen-yuan (童振源) said yesterday in a post on Facebook. Wong quoted the song, saying: “As the rain gets heavier, I will take care of you, and you,” in Mandarin, using it as a metaphor for Singaporeans coming together to face challenges. Other Singaporean politicians have also used Taiwanese songs
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