The Hakka Affairs Council (HAC) yesterday condemned China for pressuring a Mauritius hotel into canceling a cultural exchange event planned to take place there this week.
The event, a celebration of Hakka cuisine, was to be held from tomorrow until Wednesday next week at the Labourdonnais Waterfront Hotel in Port Louis, the capital, but the hotel on Saturday afternoon notified the council that it would cancel the event, citing pressure from the local Chinese embassy, HAC Deputy Minister Yang Chang-chen (楊長鎮) told a news conference in Taipei yesterday.
The embassy also threatened that any attempt by council Department of Culture and Education Director Fan Tso-ming (范佐銘) or others associated with the planned event to visit Mauritius would result in them being denied entry and might affect the ability of other Taiwanese to visit the country, he said.
Photo: Wu Hsin-tien, Taipei Times
The council is today holding the same event in South Africa, where activities began yesterday, after which it planned to take the event to Mauritius tomorrow, as 80 percent of ethnic Chinese residents there are of Hakka heritage.
The council invited celebrated Hakka chefs Jerry Chiu (邱寶郎), Wen Kuo-chi (溫國智) and Chiu Yu-han (邱聿涵) to teach hotel chefs how to prepare signature Hakka dishes. A musical performance by band ZiXuan & Slow Train (黃子軒樂團) was planned for Wednesday.
Planning for the event began after HAC Minister Lee Yong-te (李永得) in September last year received an invitation from a Hakka member of the government in Mauritius, where Taiwan has no representative office. An agreement to hold the event was officially signed last month.
The notice of the event’s cancelation received on Saturday stated that the Chinese embassy in Port Louis demanded the event be canceled because it “represented the Republic of China and not the People’s Republic of China,” adding that the hotel then agreed to cancel the event to “avoid any further foreign affairs disputes.”
Lee criticized China over the threat regarding denial of entry into Mauritius, saying the planned event was to be of a purely cultural nature.
The “Hakka Cuisine Touring Workshop” led by Jerry Chiu has already visited nine countries and 16 cities since it began touring last year, Yang said, adding that the workshop is scheduled to visit cities in South America and Europe in June and August, respectively.
The event in Port Louis was to be held at a private venue and was not political in nature, Yang said, adding that the pressure on the hotel from China showed that there are no limits to what the Chinese government would do.
The poster for the workshop displayed the official titles and emblems of the HAC and the Overseas Community Affairs Council, which is what the Chinese embassy took issue with, he said.
The council would continue to operate under its official name, despite pressure from China, and would “enter [events] through front doors and walk main streets,” he said, adding that its participation in international cultural exchanges would not change.
However, this does not mean it would go around “beating gongs and drums and wantonly announcing its official nature,” Yang said.
The council would engage in cultural exchanges in a reasonable manner that would not cause trouble for those it was engaging with, he added.
China’s insistence on the event’s cancellation is tantamount to meddling with Mauritius’ internal affairs and demonstrates a lack of courtesy toward the governments of Mauritius and Taiwan, he said.
Fan and other participants in the event said they would return to Taiwan following the conclusion of activities in South Africa.
SPACE VETERAN: Kjell N. Lindgren, who helps lead NASA’s human spaceflight missions, has been on two expeditions on the ISS and has spent 311 days in space Taiwan-born US astronaut Kjell N. Lindgren is to visit Taiwan to promote technological partnerships through one of the programs organized by the US for its 250th national anniversary. Lindgren would be in Taiwan from Tuesday to Saturday next week as part of the US Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs’ US Speaker Program, organized to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said in a statement yesterday. Lindgren plans to engage with key leaders across the nation “to advance cutting-edge technological partnerships and inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers,”
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday said it opposes the introduction of migrant workers from India until a mechanism is in place to prevent workers from absconding. Minister of Labor Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) on Thursday told the Legislative Yuan that the first group of migrant workers from India could be introduced as early as this year, as part of a government program. The caucus’ opposition to the policy is based on the assessment that “the risk is too high,” KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) said. Taiwan has a serious and long-standing problem of migrant workers absconding from their contracts, indicating that
UNREASONABLE SURVEILLANCE: A camera targeted on an road by a neighbor captured a man’s habitual unsignaled turn into home, netting him dozens of tickets The Taichung High Administrative Court has canceled all 45 tickets given to a man for failing to use a turn signal while driving, as it considered long-term surveillance of his privacy more problematic than the traffic violations. The man, surnamed Tseng (曾), lives in Changhua County and was reported 45 times within a month for failing to signal while driving when he turned into the alley where his residence is. The reports were filed by his neighbor, who set up security cameras that constantly monitored not only the alley but also the door and yard of Tseng’s house. The surveillance occurred from July
TRADE-OFF: Beijing seeks to trade a bowl of tempura for a Chinese delicacy, an official said, while another said its promises were attempts to interfere in the polls The government must carefully consider the national security implications of building a bridge connecting Kinmen County and Xiamen, China, the Public Construction Commission (PCC) said yesterday. PCC Commissioner Derek Chen (陳金德), who is also a minister without portfolio, made the remarks in a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee, after Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Hsu Fu-kuei (徐富癸) asked about China’s proposal of new infrastructure projects to further connect Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties with Xiamen. China unveiled the bridge plan, along with nine other policies for Taiwan, on Sunday, the last day of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun’s (鄭麗文) visit
RSS