The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday condemned what it called discrimination against Taiwan by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) after it declined to recognize first lady Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍) as leader of Taiwan's delegation to the Paralympic Games in Athens.
In a letter addressed to Linda Chen (陳李綢), president of Taiwan's National Paralympic Committee (NPC), on Monday, the IPC explained its policy prevented anyone who was not a serving NPC president, secretary-general or vice president from assuming team leadership at the Games.
"For this reason, the only persons entitled to NPC accreditation in the case of Chinese Taipei are: Ms. Linda Chen as the NPC President and Mr. Liu Pei-ling [
It added: "As agreed before, Ms. Wu Shu-chen and her party can be accredited as GTs [transferable guest]."
Chen, who traveled to Malaysia on Wu's behalf to apply for an NPC card in July, said she clearly told the Paralympics authorities at the time that Wu would lead Taiwan's team to the Games.
"They happily accepted that Wu is the leader of our team, not me. If they intend to oppress us by appointing me as leader of our team, I will not accept that," she told reporters.
The IPC was merely looking for an excuse in citing the regulation, ministry spokesman Michel Lu (呂慶龍) said.
"The ministry has checked the identities of leaders of Paralympic teams from 145 countries. The leaders of teams from Australia, New Zealand, Honduras, Chile, Peru, Mexico, Germany, Belgium, Nigeria, the US and South Africa do not fit the IPC accreditation policy either," he said.
"The IPC apparently discriminated against Taiwan," Lu said, adding the ministry was indignant that Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan (
China's Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman, Zhang Mingqing (
China's "irrational and inappropriate" interference in the Games was absolutely unacceptable, Lu said.
He said Wu would continue her original schedule in Athens and that the ministry supported all decisions made by Presidential Office Deputy Secretary-General James Huang (黃志芳), who is accompanying Wu.
"The IPC's bullying is unendurable. It succumbed to behind-the-scenes forces of darkness to oppress Taiwan," Huang said on Tuesday.
If the leaders of other teams to the Games had been either NPC presidents or secretaries-general, Taiwan would not have objected to the IPC's request to change the leader of Taiwan's team, Huang said.
But many others among the team leaders were neither presidents or secretaries-general, he said.
"The IPC's maneuvering is quite simply brutal," Huang added. "Is Taiwan a second-class member of the IPC?"
Taiwan's team has sent a protest letter to the IPC and requested a response be made as soon as possible, Huang said.
"We will of course not accept the GT card which the IPC offered to Wu. The cards are the lowest level of all VIP cards. It is just absurd that the IPC downgraded Wu's NPC card to a lowly GT card," he said.
The Presidential Office said yesterday that Wu made an appearance at the Paralympics Athletes Village on Tuesday to boost the Taiwanese athletes' morale in her capacity "as leader of the Taiwan team."
After the meeting, Wu visited an archeological museum in Athens in the afternoon.
She hosted a dinner banquet for seven Greek congressmen at the hotel where she is staying, a press release said.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS