Chinese embassy staffers attempted to interrupt an award ceremony of an international tea competition in France when the organizer introduced Taiwan and displayed the Republic of China flag, a Taiwanese tea farmer said in an interview published today.
Hsieh Chung-lin (謝忠霖), chief executive of Juxin Tea Factory from Taichung's Lishan (梨山) area, on Dec. 2 attended the Teas of the World International Contest held at the Peruvian embassy in Paris.
Hsieh was awarded a special prize for his Huagang Snow Source Tea by the nonprofit Agency for the Valorization of Agricultural Products (AVPA).
Photo courtesy of Hsieh Chung-lin
During the ceremony, two Chinese embassy staffers in attendance stood up and shouted “Taiwan is just a province of China” and “Taiwan is part of China,” video of the event showed.
The organizer ignored the disruption and continued the ceremony, while attendees booed the staffers and gave Hsieh a round of applause.
During a post-event dinner, Hsieh said he learned that many people came to know Taiwan through its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
They said that the more China acted in such a way, the more it would breed resentment, he said, adding that participants advised him not to pay any mind to the Chinese protest.
Reflecting on the incident, Hsieh said that as long as Taiwanese do things well and to perfection — just as Taiwan contributed to the world during the pandemic — the world would see Taiwan.
In Taipei, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Hsiao Kuang-wei (蕭光偉) called on Chinese to abide by international norms of etiquette to avoid being made a laughingstock of the global community.
Beijing can only improve cross-strait relations by engaging in respectful and equal dialogue with Taiwan and rationally viewing the reality of the situation, he added.
Hsieh’s tea factory originated in Nantou County’s Songboling (松柏嶺) area and has been passed down to him, the fifth generation.
It flourished under his father, Hsieh Hsi-hung (謝錫宏), and boasts a century-long tea-making tradition, with plantations spread across Fushou Mountain (福壽山), Lishan and Dayuling (大禹嶺).
AVPA is a non-governmental organization founded in 2005 that holds contests attracting more than 700 producers from around the world every year, according to its official Web site.
This year’s competitors included tea producers from the US, Japan and Sri Lanka.
Additional reporting by Huang Ching-hsuan
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