Organizers of a pop concert in Taipei featuring Taiwanese and Chinese artists are likely to face punishment from the government after they deleted the national title from the event's program booklets.
Mainland Affairs Council Vice Chairman Liu Te-shun (
"It's outrageous that the organizer was not able to use the name the Republic of China for an activity that was held within the ROC's territory. This has seriously undermined the basis of cross-strait exchanges," Liu told a press conference at the council.
The concert, entitled "A Night to Remember: Connected in the Southeast," featured a number of Taiwanese pop singers, including A-mei (
The concert was organized by the Performing Artists Union Taipei and sponsored by Eastern Television and China's Fujian Media Group and Chinese Culture Association, which is administered under China's Culture Ministry.
"The council had originally disapproved of the concert because one of the Chinese sponsors is a unit of the Chinese government.
It was only because the Performing Artists Union Taipei said that the concert would be an important fundraiser for it that the government eventually agreed to stage the event," Liu said.
He said that when the union applied for a concert permit the concert was categorized as a purely commercial event, which meant the singers would not give interviews or take part in promotional activities.
The union signed a contract with the council acknowledging the regulations, Liu said.
However, controversy arose after the Chinese artists arrived in Taiwan last week.
The union then demanded that all Taiwanese TV and radio stations remove their microphone flags before interviewing the Chinese singers in order to avoid violating MAC regulations.
There were complaints that the government was suppressing press freedom by not allowing the Chinese singers to talk to the media.
Liu said that the government does not bar Chinese professionals from speaking to the media, but that the situation depended on the stated purpose of their visits on their entry applications.
"Every case is different. It can't be simplified to mean `the government forbids Chinese artists to give interviews and take part in promotions for their performances in Taiwan,'" he said.
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