Civil engineering industry leader Shih Yi-fang (施義芳) said he held firm in upholding the nation’s dignity on the international stage by successfully rectifying his credentials as representing Taiwan, not “a province of China,” at a UN-related professional engineers’ conference in Prague.
Shih had registered to attend this year’s World Engineers Convention (WEC), from Monday last week to Sunday, organized by the World Federation of Engineering Organizations (WFEO).
The WFEO is a UNESCO group that is the leading organization for the worldwide engineering profession, with more than 30 million members from more than 100 countries, its Web site says.
Photo courtesy of Chinese Institute of Engineers
Taiwan’s professional engineering association on Wednesday said in a news release that Shih had arrived in Prague and headed to the event site to obtain his credentials to participate as a member in this year’s WEC events.
Shih is the chairman of CECI Engineering Consultants, Taiwan, the director of the Taiwan Professional Civil Engineers’ Association and has served one term as a legislator-at-large from 2016 to 2020.
“When receiving my credentials from the secretariat, I found that Taiwan was denigrated by being listed as a province of China,” Shih said.
A photograph provided by Taiwan’s engineers’ association showed “Taiwan, China” printed on the originally issued badge.
“For years, I have represented Taiwan, visiting many countries, attending international meetings and also pushing to hold these big events in Taiwan, but we were often denied due to pressure from China,” Shih said.
“This time I represented Taiwan by attending the worldwide convention of professional engineers and we have again come under pressure,” he said. “To uphold our nation’s dignity, I would not accept such denigration again… So I protested and made my case, and succeeded in getting the credential changed to Taiwan.”
“In the past, when registering...it usually took less than 15 minutes to complete and receive my delegate’s badge. This time we had to wait for WEC organizers to meet to discuss it, so it took some time,” Shih said.
“At the time, I was anxious, because I could not enter to discuss it in person, and was unsure of the outcome,” he said. “Fortunately, the result was what I had hoped.”
“From my experience, when we protest such matters, whether it success depends on the host country’s organizers. Taiwanese delegates attended an international engineers’ meeting in Russia, and they could not get a name change despite raising the issue, and they got so angry that they left the meeting in protest,” he added.
Shih said he was happy with the outcome.
“We have not degraded our nation’s dignity, and we thank the host country organizers for having a good understanding of this issue,” he said.
The main theme of this year’s WEC is “Engineering for Life: Breakthrough Technologies and Capacity Development.”
The convention is a leading platform for engineers from around the world, who give presentations and exchange ideas, resembling a mini-UN forum with more than 100 professional engineers’ associations from more than 80 countries.
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