China is inviting Taiwanese women to compete in its Miss China beauty pageant, but the nation's top beauties aren't interested in the contest, which requires them to "passionately love the motherland" and "support the Communist Party," a newspaper reported yesterday.
The reigning Miss Taiwan, Liu An-na (
"I very passionately love Taiwan," the newspaper quoted Liu as saying. "Why would I have to endorse the Communist Party and the motherland. There's no way I could participate."
The newspaper said that women from Hong Kong and Macau have also been invited to compete in the contest. Another Taiwanese, Beverly Chen (陳思羽), who represented Taiwan in last June's Miss Universe contest in Panama, said she doesn't plan to compete, the newspaper said.
"I have no desire to participate. I'll let someone else have the opportunity," she was quoted as saying.
Chen got caught up in the China-Taiwan rivalry during the Miss Universe contest when China pressured the organizers to insist that she not wear her "Miss Taiwan" sash on stage. She was forced to wear a sash that said "Miss Chinese Taipei," the title the country uses in the Olympics.
Chen told reporters in Panama that there were no hard feelings between her and the Miss China contestant, Wei Wu (
For decades, China refused to hold beauty pageants or send contestants to the major competitions, such as Miss Universe. But last year, China sent its first delegate to the Miss Universe pageant in 51 years.
This year, China plans to host the Miss World contest on Dec. 6 in the city of Sanya on Hainan Island in the South China Sea.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
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Taiwan Railways Corp (TRC) today announced that Shin Kong Mitsukoshi has been selected as the preferred bidder to operate the Taipei Railway Station shopping mall, replacing the current operator, Breeze Development Co Ltd. Among eight qualified firms that delivered presentations and were evaluated by a review committee, Shin Kong Mitsukoshi was ranked first, while Breeze was named the runner-up, the rail company said in a statement. Contract negotiations are to proceed in accordance with regulations, it said, adding that if negotiations with the top bidder fail, it could invite the second-ranked applicant to enter talks. Breeze in a statement today expressed doubts over
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