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.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats