Senior Olympic officials yesterday raised the prospect for the first time of abandoning the international legs of the Beijing Games torch relay, amid a wave of protests targeting the flame overseas.
The protests continued on Monday with a dramatic stunt at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, two days before the torch’s arrival to the city. Police appeared to have been caught cold by the protest, during which demonstrators scooted up the bridge’s cables using climbing gear and unfurled two giant banners.
The torch relay for Beijing and future Games will be reviewed at a meeting of International Olympic Committee (IOC) chiefs in Beijing beginning on Thursday, Gunilla Lindberg, a vice president of the IOC, told reporters.
PHOTO: AP
“I am sure it will be discussed. I think we need to have a full review,” Lindberg told reporters when asked if she thought the IOC would scrap the overseas legs of the Beijing torch relay.
Other senior IOC officials who are in Beijing to prepare for the August Games spoke bitterly of the demonstrations that have marred China’s efforts to stage the most ambitious torch relay ever.
“All I can say is we are desperately disappointed,” IOC board member Kevan Gosper said.
“[Activists] just take their hate out on whatever the issues are at the time,” Gosper said.
Campaigners are trying to raise publicity about Beijing’s controversial rule of Tibet and a wide range of human-rights abuses in China.
On Monday, the torch relay had to be dramatically cut short in Paris due to disruptions by hundreds of protesters. Widespread protests also disrupted the previous day’s leg in London, while activists promised more of the same in Australia, India, Thailand, Japan and elsewhere.
China’s Foreign Ministry yesterday angrily denounced the protests in Europe against the torch relay as “sabotage” by Tibetan separatists.
Gosper and other IOC officials said they would discuss whether to completely abandon the concept of taking the torch around the world for future Games. Gosper said the IOC might prefer a return to a relay program that would see the torch lit in Greece and then transferred to the host country.
Meanwhile, 11 foreign journalists were scheduled to depart yesterday for western China on a tour organized by China’s Foreign Ministry.
The second tour for foreign media of areas that saw mass Tibetan protests recently will fly to Lanzhou, Gansu Province, where more than 1,000 Buddhist monks led protests.
At the end of last month, journalists were taken on a highly regimented three-day trip to Lhasa. Their tour was interrupted by 30 monks at Jokhang Temple, who shouted about the lack of freedom in Tibet and rebutted China’s claims that the Dalai Lama had fomented the riots.
In related news, US Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Hillary Clinton urged President George W. Bush on Monday to boycott the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics.
Clinton, in a statement, cited violent clashes in Tibet and the lack of pressure by China on the Sudanese government to stop “the genocide in Darfur.”
“I believe President Bush should not plan on attending the opening ceremonies in Beijing, absent major changes by the Chinese government,” the New York senator said.
‘LAGGING BEHIND’: The NATO secretary-general called on democratic allies to be ‘clear-eyed’ about Beijing’s military buildup, urging them to boost military spending NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte mentioning China’s bullying of Taiwan and its ambition to reshape the global order has significance during a time when authoritarian states are continuously increasing their aggression, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday. In a speech at the Carnegie Europe think tank in Brussels on Thursday, Rutte said Beijing is bullying Taiwan and would start to “nibble” at Taiwan if Russia benefits from a post-invasion peace deal with Ukraine. He called on democratic allies to boost defense investments and also urged NATO members to increase defense spending in the face of growing military threats from Russia
LEAP FORWARD: The new tanks are ‘decades more advanced than’ the army’s current fleet and would enable it to compete with China’s tanks, a source said A shipment of 38 US-made M1A2T Abrams tanks — part of a military procurement package from the US — arrived at the Port of Taipei early yesterday. The vehicles are the first batch of 108 tanks and other items that then-US president Donald Trump announced for Taiwan in 2019. The Ministry of National Defense at the time allocated NT$40.5 billion (US$1.25 billion) for the purchase. To accommodate the arrival of the tanks, the port suspended the use of all terminals and storage area machinery from 6pm last night until 7am this morning. The tanks are expected to be deployed at the army’s training
TECH CONFERENCE: Input from industry and academic experts can contribute to future policymaking across government agencies, President William Lai said Multifunctional service robots could be the next new area in which Taiwan could play a significant role, given its strengths in chip manufacturing and software design, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) chairman and chief executive C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said yesterday. “In the past two months, our customers shared a lot of their future plans with me. Artificial intelligence [AI] and AI applications were the most talked about subjects in our conversation,” Wei said in a speech at the National Science and Technology Conference in Taipei. TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, counts Nvidia Corp, Advanced Micro Devices Inc, Apple Inc and
PEACEFUL RESOLUTION: A statement issued following a meeting between Australia and Britain reiterated support for Taiwan and opposition to change in the Taiwan Strait Canada should support the peaceful resolution of Taiwan’s destiny according to the will of Taiwanese, Canadian lawmakers said in a resolution marking the second anniversary of that nation’s Indo-Pacific strategy on Monday. The Canadian House of Commons committee on Canada-Chinese relations made the comment as part of 34 recommendations for the new edition of the strategy, adding that Ottawa should back Taiwan’s meaningful participation in international organizations. Canada’s Indo-Pacific Strategy, first published in October 2022, emphasized that the region’s security, trade, human rights, democracy and environmental protection would play a crucial role in shaping Canada’s future. The strategy called for Canada to deepen
RSS