Three Chinese cities will attend the Taipei International Flora Expo in November, Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) said yesterday, insisting that the city government would follow international regulations in response to concern about the use of Chinese national flags during the event.
The expo will be held from Nov. 6 to April 25 next year in Taipei. Beijing, Shanghai and Xian are among the 59 cities from 31 nations set to take part.
In a promotional event at Taipei City Hall yesterday, Hau joined Doeke Faber, director of International Association of Horticultural Producers to formally announce the nations that will participate in the expo, with 31 children waving national flags from the participating countries, including China.
Hau declined to comment on the appearance of the Chinese flag yesterday and the possibility of it appearing at the expo.
“We’ve had experience in hosting the Deaflympics and the World Games in Taiwan, and we will follow international regulations,” he said.
China participated in last year’s Deaflymipcs in Taipei and World Games in Kaohsiung. The issue of Chinese flags was a cause of concern before the events, but the Chinese teams sidestepped the issue by forgoing both opening ceremonies. The Chinese also missed the closing ceremony in Kaohsiung, but attended the Deaflympics closing ceremony, albeit without carrying a national flag.
Hau said the expo would be a major event in next year’s celebrations of the 100th anniversary of the ROC.
Faber, in Taipei this week to inspect the expo sites, said he was impressed with the city government’s efforts to turn stadiums and riverside locations into exhibition sites, and expected the event to promote a greener environment in Taipei for future generations.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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