The nation's membership in the International Olympics Commit-tee (IOC) will not be revoked as a result of rejected the route for the Olympic torch relay, the chairman of the National Council on Physical Fitness and Sports said yesterday.
Taiwan's athletes would participate in the Beijing Olympics "as long as damage to the nation's sovereignty is avoided," Jongher Yang (
Yang made the comments as he fielded questions from angry legislators during a meeting of the legislature's Education and Culture Committee about the spurning of Beijing's torch relay plan.
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) made the decision to reject the relay, even though the sports council was the one that made the announcement, Yang said.
The sports council rejected the torch relay during a televised press conference last Thursday night, two hours after Beijing had announced that Taiwan would be included in the relay route.
"The decision was made in a meeting in which the Mainland Affairs Council raised objections to the route because it belittled our sovereignty," he said, refusing to say exactly who had raised the objections.
Several Cabinet agencies, including the MAC, the sports council and the Government Information Office, said Beijing had violated a deal with Taiwan about the relay by referring to the country as "Taipei, China" instead of by its IOC title -- "Chinese Taipei."
However, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Diane Lee (李慶安) said that China had never used the title "Taipei, China" in any official documents related to the Beijing Olympics.
She said the Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee had signed an agreement with Beijing on the torch route after getting permission from the Cabinet to do so.
"What's the real reason behind your agreeing to the route with Beijing and then reneging on it?" Lee asked Yang, who told her that "Taipei, China" is used on China's Olympic committee Web site.
Meanwhile, KMT Legislator Huang Chih-hsiung (黃志雄) -- an Olympic silver medalist in taekwondo -- yesterday launched an online signature campaign to urge the government to change its stance on the torch relay.
"Instead of worrying that Taiwan's sovereignty will be degraded by the route, why not let people line the streets to welcome the Olympic torch to demonstrate Taiwan's identity?" Huang said.
Additional reporting by Shih Hsiu-chuan
WANG RELEASED: A police investigation showed that an organized crime group allegedly taught their clients how to pretend to be sick during medical exams Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) and 11 others were released on bail yesterday, after being questioned for allegedly dodging compulsory military service or forging documents to help others avoid serving. Wang, 33, was catapulted into stardom for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代). Lately, he has been focusing on developing his entertainment career in China. The New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office last month began investigating an organized crime group that is allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified documents. Police in New Taipei City Yonghe Precinct at the end of last month arrested the main suspect,
A cat named Mikan (蜜柑) has brought in revenue of more than NT$10 million (US$305,390) for the Kaohsiung MRT last year. Mikan, born on April 4, 2020, was a stray cat before being adopted by personnel of Kaohsiung MRT’s Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station. Mikan was named after a Japanese term for mandarin orange due to his color and because he looks like an orange when curled up. He was named “station master” of Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station in September 2020, and has since become famous. With Kaohsiung MRT’s branding, along with the release of a set of cultural and creative products, station master Mikan
Eleven people, including actor Darren Wang (王大陸), were taken into custody today for questioning regarding the evasion of compulsory military service and document forgery, the New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said. Eight of the people, including Wang, are suspected of evading military service, while three are suspected of forging medical documents to assist them, the report said. They are all being questioned by police and would later be transferred to the prosecutors’ office for further investigation. Three men surnamed Lee (李), Chang (張) and Lin (林) are suspected of improperly assisting conscripts in changing their military classification from “stand-by
LITTORAL REGIMENTS: The US Marine Corps is transitioning to an ‘island hopping’ strategy to counterattack Beijing’s area denial strategy The US Marine Corps (USMC) has introduced new anti-drone systems to bolster air defense in the Pacific island chain amid growing Chinese military influence in the region, The Telegraph reported on Sunday. The new Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS) Mk 1 is being developed to counter “the growing menace of unmanned aerial systems,” it cited the Marine Corps as saying. China has constructed a powerful defense mechanism in the Pacific Ocean west of the first island chain by deploying weapons such as rockets, submarines and anti-ship missiles — which is part of its anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy against adversaries — the
RSS