US visas for the Ministry of National Defense Symphony Orchestra (MNDSO) seeking to attend the US Immigration Service’s “Centennial Legacy” torch relay in Hawaii have been withheld unless the orchestra undertakes to refrain from wearing military uniforms, not use its official name and not perform outdoors.
The MNDSO is the military’s most prestigious symphony orchestra, playing at important national ceremonies, military salutes for visiting foreign dignitaries, national banquets and other important ceremonies.
“The conditions listed by the US government imply that no public performance is allowed,” Taiwanese--Americans said in reaction. “This is the ‘good relations’ the Ma [Ying-jeou (馬英九)] regime claims to have with the US?”
The Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Washington said it was working with the US Department of State to resolve the matter.
An anonymous source said that in addition to the activities in Honolulu, the US Immigration Service previously extended an invitation to the orchestra to perform in Los Angeles on Jan. 8. As a result there had been plans for the orchestra to tour in California, then Phoenix, Arizona, where it would have performed for Taiwanese pilots training with F-16s at Luke Airforce Base.
However, that plan was aborted because of the withheld visas.
Although the US has yet to provide an official explanation, some have alleged that the US government did not want to jeopardize the Jan. 18 to Jan. 21 state visit by Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤).
Sources said that in addition to the conditional granting of the visas, the orchestra also encountered certain funding problems.
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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