Miss Taiwan, Beverly Chen (陳思羽), who accused China of bullying her this May at the Miss Universe contest in Panama City, admitted late Wednesday to have participated in a Guangzhou beauty contest last year.
"The contest was for all overseas Chinese," Chen said in a TV interview, when asked the reason why she took part in the beauty contest in China.
Wu Miao-ser (巫妙璱), Chen's mother, told the Taipei Times Chen joined a series of beauty pageants to raise her self-confidence.
PHOTO: CHIANG YING-YING, TAIPEI TIMES
The annual beauty pageant for overseas Chinese was held in Guangzhou for the first time last year. Competitors in the beauty pageant came from 19 cities worldwide.
Chen was among the 19 women selected in the pageant to be "Friendly Travel Ambassadors in Guangzhou."
At a news conference prior to a banquet held by the rotary clubs of Taipei's Lungmen and Shuangyuan districts where Chen was invited to be an ambassador for their charity activities, Chen gave a short interview to reporters to talk about her experiences at the Miss Universe contest..
An item on Chen's resume in brochures given out to reporters was crossed out.
The item was "Friendly Travel Ambassador for Guangzhou, 2002."
Wu said the item had been crossed out in order to prevent controversy.
Chen, who ranked seventh on the list of the 10 most popular contestants at the Miss Universe contest, returned to Taiwan on June 29.
Chen made headlines at the competition by challenging the demands of the contest organizers that she wear a sash describing her as Miss Chinese Taipei rather than Miss Taiwan.
Chen, 24, is currently a student at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia. She was Miss Chinese Melbourne in 2001.
Peter Wang (王正義), general manager of JANO Enterprise Inc, arranged Chen to be the two rotary clubs' charity ambassador.
When asked to comment on Chen's participation in the Guangzhou pageant, Wang said yesterday competitors in the pageant were from all over the world.
Wang noted there was nothing wrong about Chen's joining the beauty contest.
In the Wednesday press conference, Chen wore the Miss Taiwan sash she was not allowed to don at the Miss Universe contest.
Chen said that she had been saddened that the pageant authorities had succumbed to pressure from China on the sash issue.
Chen said the pageant authorities gave her two sashes, one read "Miss Taiwan" and the other "Chinese Taipei."
"I was told to wear the Chinese Taipei one in front of the media. The Miss Taiwan one was only for occasions where the media were absent," Chen said.
Chen recalled during the beauty contest, competitors were once arranged to meet Panama's President Mireya Moscoso.
"I put on the Miss Taiwan sash for the occasion. I thought the sash would be suitable for the occasion because Panama was one of Taiwan's allies," Chen said.
However, officials from the pageant authorities asked her to go to a vehicle parked outside and harshly demanded that she change her sash to the Chinese Taipei one, she said.
"The episode really saddened me," she said.
On May 23, a tearful Chen appeared in a press conference in the midst of the beauty contest to tell reporters the pageant authorities said she could no longer wear her Miss Taiwan sash.
She told reporters that due to pressure from China, the pageant authorities said she could only wear the Chinese Taipei sash.
Chen said in order to allow the beauty contest to continue peacefully, she decided to abide by the pageant authorities' request.
A Chinese freighter that allegedly snapped an undersea cable linking Taiwan proper to Penghu County is suspected of being owned by a Chinese state-run company and had docked at the ports of Kaohsiung and Keelung for three months using different names. On Tuesday last week, the Togo-flagged freighter Hong Tai 58 (宏泰58號) and its Chinese crew were detained after the Taipei-Penghu No. 3 submarine cable was severed. When the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) first attempted to detain the ship on grounds of possible sabotage, its crew said the ship’s name was Hong Tai 168, although the Automatic Identification System (AIS)
An Akizuki-class destroyer last month made the first-ever solo transit of a Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ship through the Taiwan Strait, Japanese government officials with knowledge of the matter said yesterday. The JS Akizuki carried out a north-to-south transit through the Taiwan Strait on Feb. 5 as it sailed to the South China Sea to participate in a joint exercise with US, Australian and Philippine forces that day. The Japanese destroyer JS Sazanami in September last year made the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s first-ever transit through the Taiwan Strait, but it was joined by vessels from New Zealand and Australia,
CHANGE OF MIND: The Chinese crew at first showed a willingness to cooperate, but later regretted that when the ship arrived at the port and refused to enter Togolese Republic-registered Chinese freighter Hong Tai (宏泰號) and its crew have been detained on suspicion of deliberately damaging a submarine cable connecting Taiwan proper and Penghu County, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement yesterday. The case would be subject to a “national security-level investigation” by the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office, it added. The administration said that it had been monitoring the ship since 7:10pm on Saturday when it appeared to be loitering in waters about 6 nautical miles (11km) northwest of Tainan’s Chiang Chun Fishing Port, adding that the ship’s location was about 0.5 nautical miles north of the No.
COORDINATION, ASSURANCE: Separately, representatives reintroduced a bill that asks the state department to review guidelines on how the US engages with Taiwan US senators on Tuesday introduced the Taiwan travel and tourism coordination act, which they said would bolster bilateral travel and cooperation. The bill, proposed by US senators Marsha Blackburn and Brian Schatz, seeks to establish “robust security screenings for those traveling to the US from Asia, open new markets for American industry, and strengthen the economic partnership between the US and Taiwan,” they said in a statement. “Travel and tourism play a crucial role in a nation’s economic security,” but Taiwan faces “pressure and coercion from the Chinese Communist Party [CCP]” in this sector, the statement said. As Taiwan is a “vital trading
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