The Sun Moon Lake National Scenic Area Management Office yesterday apologized after hats bearing the emblem of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) were included as props at photo booth at a railway-themed music festival to celebrate the resumption of service on the Jiji Line (集集支線).
Among the activities held by the office at the railway plaza of Checheng Station (車埕) on Saturday was a stationmaster experience, where participants could wear railway uniforms and hats for photographs.
Several conductor hats featuring China’s national emblem were mixed in with Taiwan Railways Corp (TRC) hats and made available to the public, a participant said, calling it “outrageous” that the props appeared at an event organized by a public agency.
Photo courtesy of a reader
Some people unknowingly wore the hats for photos, they added.
The management office said the incident was due to a mistake by a contractor who purchased the wrong hats online and neglected to remove them before the event.
The contractor purchased “performance hats” online for the stationmaster experience, but discovered upon delivery that they bore the PRC logo, it said.
The contractor subsequently obtained authentic TRC conductor hats from a collector, it added.
A separate staging team displayed all the props without noticing the issue, while agency staff failed to conduct a final on-site inspection, the office said.
The agency apologized for the oversight, pledging to strengthen review procedures, avoid holding similar activities and conduct more thorough checks if such events are organized again.
The contractor acknowledged the “serious mistake” and pledged to carefully review all props for events and consult the authorities on their appropriateness.
The controversy followed another incident involving the use of Chinese national symbols by the Taichung City Government.
The Taichung Housing Development Department’s Civil Service Ethics Office used the PRC national emblem to represent Taiwan’s central government in a promotional poster generated by artificial intelligence (AI).
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) yesterday called on government agencies at all levels to strengthen their oversight, saying that public officials must remain vigilant about matters concerning national borders.
This lack of awareness has led to similar incidents occurring at national and local levels.
Hung Pu-chao (洪浦釗), deputy head of Tunghai University’s Center for Mainland China and Regional Development Research, said that while a single incident could be dismissed as negligence, a series of similar cases raises questions about whether Taiwan’s public sector has become less attentive to Chinese political symbols.
While the two incidents are different in nature and there is no evidence of Chinese infiltration, authorities should investigate the source of the materials and the review procedures involved, he said.
In the Sun Moon Lake incident, the conductor hats passed through multiple stages, including event planning, procurement and on-site use, yet no one removed the hats featuring the five-star Chinese national emblem, Hung said.
Authorities should determine at which stage the failure occurred and clarify the responsibilities of organizers, supervisors and contractors, he said.
As government institutions represent the nation, symbols such as flags, emblems and uniforms carry clear national significance, he said, suggesting that they should be included as standard inspection items in government procurement inspections and outsourced events.
Event organizers and contractors should be responsible for inspection and review, and government agencies should not outsource content production and simultaneously outsource accountability, he said.
Chinese political symbols are entering Taiwanese society through commercial products, online materials and AI-generated content, Hung said.
The central government should establish common guidelines for central and local agencies, he said.
Additional reporting by Lin Che-yuan
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