The Chinese Taipei Skating Union (CTSU) yesterday said that it was under “invisible international pressure” when it suggested to the International Skating Union (ISU) in May that the latter could change the venue of the Asian Open Figure Skating Classic, but added that it did not tell the ISU that it would forfeit the right to host the competition.
The revelation came after the ISU on Wednesday issued a statement saying that it received at the end of May indications from several Asian members, including the CTSU, that “it would be preferable to host this event in another Asian nation.”
“The ISU invited the interested Asian members to consult with each other and agree upon the most suitable host city. As a result and with the specific agreement of the Chinese Taipei Skating Union, it was finally decided that this Challenger Series event would be hosted by the Hong Kong Skating Union [HKSU] and be held in Dongguan City, China, on Oct. 30 to Nov. 3, 2019,” the ISU said in the statement.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
The ISU statement contradicted what the CTSU said on Tuesday, when it claimed to have been informed about the ISU council’s decision without any prior knowledge.
The Sports Administration on Wednesday vowed to work with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee to help the CTSU appeal what it saw as a unilateral and unjust ruling by the ISU.
CTSU secretary-general Eddy Wu (吳奕德) yesterday told a news conference that both the CTSU and the HKSU submitted applications to host the event in February.
On March 27, the ISU listed Taipei as one of the venues to host one of its Challenger Series events this year, he said, adding that the CTSU then began preparing for it.
The ISU on May 20 announced that Taipei would be hosting the Asian Open Figure Skating Classic.
“However, we have heard that HKSU continued to actively pursue the right to host the competition and gained the support of some ISU members. Due to invisible international pressure, some ISU members that are friendly toward us have told us certain ISU members conspired to boycott the event in Taipei. This could cause us to be unable to meet the requirement for minimum number of participating nations and consequently skaters’ performances in the competition would not be recognized by the ISU,” Wu said.
“As such, we told the ISU that while we still hope that it continues to support us hosting the competition, but we also said that maybe changing the venue could be a possible option.’ Perhaps the ISU interpreted that statement as meaning we wanted to give up the right to host the event,” he added.
The CTSU did not get a response from the ISU until June 25, when the latter wrote a letter to ask for its permission to hand the right to host the competition to the HKSU, he said.
“We understood that the situation was not in our favor from our conversations with our allies. To preserve our good relations with the ISU and future opportunities to host competitions, we replied on June 28 that we agreed to the arrangement, but said we were waiting for a final decision from the ISU council,” he said. “We want to make it clear that we never thought about not hosting the event until we saw the ISU announcement on Monday.”
Sports Administration International and Cross-strait Division Director Hsu Hsiu-ling (許秀玲) said that the Ministry of Education yesterday formed an ad hoc team to investigate why the CTSU told different stories over the past three days.
The Sports Administration is also to convene a meeting today of foreign ministry officials, legal experts and representatives from the Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee and the CTSU to clarify details about the case.
The information gathered at the meeting would be used in the investigation, Hsu said, adding that any punishment would be determined after the investigation is concluded.
Hsu said that the administration met with the CTSU on Wednesday and yesterday morning, during which time it made no mention of the “invisible international pressure” that it experienced from other ISU members.
“They told us they did not hear anything from the ISU from the end of May until this month and that they were shocked. Imagine our shock when we read the statement from the ISU,” she said.
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
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
Tainan, Taipei and New Taipei City recorded the highest fines nationwide for illegal accommodations in the first quarter of this year, with fines issued in the three cities each exceeding NT$7 million (US$220,639), Tourism Administration data showed. Among them, Taipei had the highest number of illegal short-term rental units, with 410. There were 3,280 legally registered hotels nationwide in the first quarter, down by 14 properties, or 0.43 percent, from a year earlier, likely indicating operators exiting the market, the agency said. However, the number of unregistered properties rose to 1,174, including 314 illegal hotels and 860 illegal short-term rental
AIR ALERT: China’s reservation of airspace over the Yellow Sea and East China Sea could be an attempt to test the US’ response ahead of a Trump-Xi meeting, the NSB head said China’s attempts to infiltrate Taiwan are systematic, planned and targeted, with activity shifting from recruiting mid-level military officers to rank-and-file enlisted personnel, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) integrates national security, intelligence operations and “united front” efforts into a dense network to conduct intelligence gathering and espionage in Taiwan, Tsai said at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee. It uses specific networks to screen targets through exchange activities and recruiting local collaborators to establish intelligence-gathering organizations, he said. China is also shifting who it targets to lower-ranking military personnel,
RSS