The London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) has allowed spectators to show small-sized Republic of China (ROC) national flags in venues of the Olympic Games, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs official said yesterday.
Hsu Mien-sheng (徐勉生), the director-general of the ministry’s Department of European Affairs, described the move as a “gesture of goodwill” extended to Taiwan after an ROC flag was removed from an array of 206 national colors, representing the nations competing in the Olympic Games, in a London street. The display was organized by the Regent Street Association.
The Taipei Representative Office in the UK had reached an understanding with the LOCOG that Olympic-venue security staff would allow spectators to dress in the colors of the ROC flag, paint the ROC flag on their faces, or bring small ROC flags with them to the venues, Hsu said.
Photo: courtesy of Chen Szu-wei
Hsu said that the display of the ROC flag in seating areas is not in compliance with the protocol signed between Taiwan and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1981, known as the “Olympic Model,” to resolve issues stemming from a sovereignty dispute with China.
In accordance with the protocol, Taiwan competes in the Olympics under the name “Chinese Taipei” and is represented by the Chinese Taipei Olympic flag at Olympic venues, rather than the ROC flag.
“Strictly speaking, only the Chinese Taipei Olympic flag recognized by the IOC is allowed in Olympic venues, including its audience areas,” Hsu said.
According to a Central News Agency report, large ROC flags are still forbidden until changes are made to the model. Hsu did not verify that report, but he said the Olympics organizers do not allow spectators of any nationality to wave large national flags of any country, to keep them from disturbing other people in the audience.
The Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) reported that some Taiwanese spectators were warned by Olympics staff for waving large ROC flags to cheer on the country’s taekwondo athletes, Yang Shu-chun (楊淑君) and Wei Chen-yang (魏辰洋), during Wednesday’s matches.
A woman surnamed Chen (陳) told the Liberty Times that Olympics staff asked them not to wave the flag and even tried to grab their flag. She added that they were kept under close watch by staff members until they left.
Hsu said he was not able to verify the report.
He added that the nation’s representative office has on several occasions expressed concerns to the Regent Street Association over its replacing the ROC flag with a Chinese Taipei Olympic flag.
The LOCOG has confirmed that it advised the association to remove the ROC flag after a complaint from the Chinese embassy.
The association made it clear to the representative office that it “meant no disrespect” to Taiwan and felt sorry for any offense caused, Hsu said.
The association was “overloaded” with telephone complaints and e-mails from UK politicians, ordinary British citizens and people from other countries about the replacement of the ROC flag in the display, Hsu said.
Some members of the UK parliament also sent letters to the association to express their disapproval and demand a remedy, Hsu added.
ENDEAVOR MANTA: The ship is programmed to automatically return to its designated home port and would self-destruct if seized by another party The Endeavor Manta, Taiwan’s first military-specification uncrewed surface vehicle (USV) tailor-made to operate in the Taiwan Strait in a bid to bolster the nation’s asymmetric combat capabilities made its first appearance at Kaohsiung’s Singda Harbor yesterday. Taking inspiration from Ukraine’s navy, which is using USVs to force Russia’s Black Sea fleet to take shelter within its own ports, CSBC Taiwan (台灣國際造船) established a research and development unit on USVs last year, CSBC chairman Huang Cheng-hung (黃正弘) said. With the exception of the satellite guidance system and the outboard motors — which were purchased from foreign companies that were not affiliated with Chinese-funded
PERMIT REVOKED: The influencer at a news conference said the National Immigration Agency was infringing on human rights and persecuting Chinese spouses Chinese influencer “Yaya in Taiwan” (亞亞在台灣) yesterday evening voluntarily left Taiwan, despite saying yesterday morning that she had “no intention” of leaving after her residence permit was revoked over her comments on Taiwan being “unified” with China by military force. The Ministry of the Interior yesterday had said that it could forcibly deport the influencer at midnight, but was considering taking a more flexible approach and beginning procedures this morning. The influencer, whose given name is Liu Zhenya (劉振亞), departed on a 8:45pm flight from Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) to Fuzhou, China. Liu held a news conference at the airport at 7pm,
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
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 —
RSS