Luxury Italian sports-car brand Maserati has cut sponsorship ties with Taiwan’s top film awards, the latest international brand to bow to pressure from China over political issues.
Maserati said on an official account on a Chinese microblogging site that it had pulled out of sponsoring the Golden Horse Awards.
The company directly linked its decision to Beijing’s stance on Taiwan.
Photo: AP
“Maserati has always respected China’s territorial integrity, its history and culture, while firmly upholding the one China principle,” the firm said.
The initial sponsorship deal was struck by Maserati’s local office in Taiwan and did not represent the brand’s “official stance,” it said.
Wen Tien-hsiang, (聞天祥), executive director of the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival Executive Committee, yesterday confirmed the report, saying that the 56th Golden Horse Film Festival would not be affected and will go ahead as scheduled next month.
“Sponsors have always enjoyed high [media] exposure at the film festival and awards presentation event. We won’t make things difficult for sponsoring businesses,” Wen said.
The Golden Horse awards got into trouble with Beijing after Taiwanese filmmaker Fu Yu (傅榆) called for Taiwanese independence in an acceptance speech at last year’s ceremony.
In August, China’s national film board ordered Chinese directors and stars to boycott the Nov. 23 event and all Chinese films were withdrawn from the nomination list.
International brands have routinely bowed to Beijing’s stance on Taiwan. A growing list of international firms, including luxury brands, airlines and hotels, in the past few years have been pressured to apologize to Beijing or change Taiwan’s classification on their Web sites to “Taiwan, China” or “Chinese Taipei.”
Last week, Dior apologized after a staff presentation featured a map of China without Taiwan on it. The apology sparked criticism from Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮), who urged brands to “stand up to the bully.”
On Thursday, US Vice President Mike Pence gave a speech excoriating brands who bow to pressure from Beijing, singling out the National Basketball Association (NBA) and Nike.
The NBA has been engulfed in controversy since Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey this month tweeted “Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong.”
China, a major market for the NBA, retaliated by ending sponsorships and canceling broadcasts of pre-season games in the country, leading the NBA to drop all media events of the tour.
Nike pulled Houston Rockets merchandise from its stores in China.
Additional reporting by staff writer, with CNA
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
BREACH OF CONTRACT: The bus operators would seek compensation and have demanded that the manufacturer replace the chips with ones that meet regulations Two bus operators found to be using buses with China-made chips are to demand that the original manufacturers replace the systems and provide compensation for breach of contract, the Veterans Affairs Council said yesterday. Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) yesterday said that Da Nan Bus Co and Shin-Shin Bus Co Ltd have fielded a total of 82 buses that are using Chinese chips. The bus models were made by Tron-E, while the systems provider was CYE Electronics, Lin said. Lin alleged that the buses were using chips manufactured by Huawei subsidiary HiSilicon Co, which presents a national security risk if the
The National Immigration Agency has banned two Chinese from returning to Taiwan, after they published social media content it described as disrespectful to national sovereignty. The agency imposed a two-month ban on a Chinese man surnamed Liang (梁) and a permanent ban on a woman surnamed Yang (楊), an influencer with 23 million followers, in October last year and last week respectively. Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) yesterday said on the sidelines of a legislative meeting that Chinese visitors to Taiwan are required to comply with the rules and regulations governing their entry permits. The government has handled the ban and
RSS