To what lows would China stoop to protect its already tarnished image and save face? Over the years, we’ve seen a lot of knee-jerk reactions out of China when it comes to projecting its prowess — the Tiananmen Square Massacre, the mass roundup of Falun Gong practitioners, the “Anti-Secession” Law and shrill reactions to US arms sales to Taiwan — but Wednesday’s twist of fate in the women’s taekwondo event at the Asian Games in Guangzhou, China, really takes the cake.
Officials disqualified Taiwanese taekwondo athlete Yang Shu-chun (楊淑君) for wearing electronic socks that had passed inspections prior to the event, sending her packing just as she was beating her Vietnamese opponent Vu Thi Hau 9-0.
What prompted this? On the surface, it would seem that Chinese authorities didn’t want to see a Taiwanese athlete do well in a tournament they were organizing.
The World Taekwondo Federation (WTF) had certified the brand of electronic socks that led to Yang’s disqualification. She said she had brought two pairs of WTF-sanctioned socks, but officials rejected one pair, so she was allowed to wear the other pair in the event. The chief judge had examined her socks before the match began, so it seems unreasonable that she was disqualified in the first round of her bout with Vu.
Taiwanese anchorwoman Chen Yi-an (陳怡安), an Olympic taekwondo gold medalist, likely hit on the truth when she angrily denounced the decision, saying she suspected a plot to discredit Yang because she was likely to meet Chinese competitor Wu Jingyu (吳靜鈺) — who beat Yang at the 2008 Beijing Olympics — if she won against Vu.
Now it seems judges at the Asian Games eliminated the risk that the “pride of China” would be beaten by the “pride of Taiwan.”
The controversy over this decision is not going to die down soon, even though the five-member WTF technical committee confirmed the disqualification and the Asian Games arbitration committee rejected a formal protest from the Taiwanese delegation.
In a rare show of unity, Taiwanese lawmakers across party lines have condemned this decision as unfair. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Huang Chih-hsiung (黃志雄), a former taekwondo athlete, called the ruling “inconceivable and ridiculous,” while Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) urged the Sports Affairs Council to do everything it could to overturn the decision, “even if it means we have to boycott the Games.”
Chinese authorities have demonstrated time and again their lack of respect for Taiwan, which they consider a renegade “province” that should bow to their every whim.
Most of the time, this disrespect is manifested in greater forms — stealing Taiwan’s allies, exerting economic or military pressure and rejecting Taiwan’s UN membership bids.
However, sometimes its attitude toward Taiwan is put on display in much smaller, yet equally unsubtle ways — this time, seemingly twisting the rules to have a legitimate athlete disqualified from the Asian Games.
In a stark reminder of China’s persistent territorial overreach, Pema Wangjom Thongdok, a woman from Arunachal Pradesh holding an Indian passport, was detained for 18 hours at Shanghai Pudong Airport on Nov. 24 last year. Chinese immigration officials allegedly informed her that her passport was “invalid” because she was “Chinese,” refusing to recognize her Indian citizenship and claiming Arunachal Pradesh as part of South Tibet. Officials had insisted that Thongdok, an Indian-origin UK resident traveling for a conference, was not Indian despite her valid documents. India lodged a strong diplomatic protest, summoning the Chinese charge d’affaires in Delhi and demanding
Immediately after the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) “Justice Mission” exercise at the end of last year, a question was posed to Indian Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal regarding recent developments involving the exercises around Taiwan, and how he viewed their impact on regional peace and stability. His answer was somewhat perplexing to me as a curious student of Taiwanese affairs. “India closely follows developments across the Indo-Pacific region,” he said, adding: “We have an abiding interest in peace and stability in the region, in view of our significant trade, economic, people-to-people, and maritime interests. We urge all concerned
In the past 72 hours, US Senators Roger Wicker, Dan Sullivan and Ruben Gallego took to social media to publicly rebuke the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) over the defense budget. I understand that Taiwan’s head is on the chopping block, and the urgency of its security situation cannot be overstated. However, the comments from Wicker, Sullivan and Gallego suggest they have fallen victim to a sophisticated disinformation campaign orchestrated by an administration in Taipei that treats national security as a partisan weapon. The narrative fed to our allies claims the opposition is slashing the defense budget to kowtow to the Chinese
In a Taipei Times editorial published almost three years ago (“Macron goes off-piste,” April 13, 2023, page 8), French President Emmanuel Macron was criticized for comments he made immediately after meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Beijing. Macron had spoken of the need for his country to find a path on Chinese foreign policy no longer aligned with that of the US, saying that continuing to follow the US agenda would sacrifice the EU’s strategic autonomy. At the time, Macron was criticized for gifting Xi a PR coup, and the editorial said that he had been “persuaded to run
RSS