Taiwan won't be 'internal path' for Olympics torch

A recent report from SMH suggests that tension could even reach a new high in Beijing with the re-entry of Jiang Zemin in politics next year. "A central theme in his (Jiang Zemin) letters and speeches to the People's Liberation Army is the need to prepare to fight Taiwanese independence.

"The Taiwan issue has been my biggest worry. Now and in the coming period of time, the largest and most real threat to our national security is Taiwan's pro-independence separatist forces," he said in his final speech to the army's leadership in September 2004." (more)

The Beijing Olympics are likely to be used as a tool for spreading shameless propaganda and jeopardizing Taiwan’s sovereignty. We can only imagine the worst possible scenario knowing China's aggressiveness.

Here are some reactions from the folks at Taipei Times:

Taiwan won't be `internal path' for Olympics torch

The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said the torch relay for the 2008 Beijing Olympics can only pass through this country if Taiwan takes part as an International Olympic Committee (IOC) member rather than as a province of China.

If Beijing insists on Taiwan being considered an internal Chinese route, the Taiwanese people will not accept such a move, a Central News Agency (CNA) report quoted MAC Vice Chairman Liu Te-hsun as saying yesterday.

Otherwise, he said, China's insistence that the torch pass through Taiwan as an "internal route" will make the entire event a big piece of political propaganda by the Chinese authorities. (more)

Take your Olympic torch and snuff it

Taiwan is a free country, at least for now. And in this spirit, Olympic officials should be duly warned: an Olympic torch that passes through Taiwan in the service of a predatory Chinese government will turn into an unprecedented debacle. Protests and specially placed activists positioned on every street corner would obstruct the relay and even extinguish the flame, maximizing embarrassing TV footage for all the world to see. (more)

Standing up to a `united front' for the Games

I have a number of observations to make about how China is going to take advantage of its hosting of the Olympics to prevent Taiwan from asserting its sovereignty.

"Chinese Taipei" is the name that Taiwan has used in past olympic games. To speed up the annexation of Taiwan and unify the ideological education of its people, China has for many years used the epithet "the team from Taipei, China" in sports broadcasts and even included Taiwanese gold medals in the national total medal count for China. (more)