AP News, April 27th, 2007
China is ready to hold the Olympic torch relay without Taiwan, meaning the 85,000-mile route _ billed as the largest on record _ may bypass the breakaway island with which China has disputed sovereignty for almost 60 years.
Taiwan suddenly backed out of the ballyhooed relay on Thursday, embarrassing Beijing officials who had announced the route just two hours before in a lavish TV ceremony. The 130-day journey will cross five continents and attempt to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
Next year's high-profile prelude to the 2008 Olympics was an opportunity for an upbeat public-relations event, a chance for China to showcase its diverse regions to the world. Instead, the relay could uncover sharp political divisions, particularly in areas like Taiwan and Tibet.
Overshadowing Olympic values like friendship and fairness, Beijing organizers on Friday accused Taipei Olympic officials of breaking their word and promised to hold the relay _ with or without the breakaway island.
"For any large scale event there will be two or three backup plans," said Jiang Xiaoyu, executive vice president of the Beijing organizing committee. "The torch relay is a very large event, and we have several contingency plans."
He declined to disclose them, but said negotiations would continue to include Taiwan, which has a population of 23 million. China has 1.3 billion.
In Taiwan, the reversal may have come from President Chen Shui-bian, whose ruling Democratic Progressive Party is contesting legislative elections later this year.
"Chen seems to have concluded that thumbing his nose at Beijing was the best course of action to energize his party," said Andrew Yang of the Taipei-based Chinese Council of Advanced Policy Studies.
China has pledged to take the torch through every part of the country, and skipping Taiwan would suggest the island is not part of China _ which is the position of the self-governing island.
Jiang showed reporters several documents _ agreements he said were signed by Tsai Chen-wei _ head of the Taipei Olympic Committee, pledging Taiwan's participation.
"We were surprised by their attitude and related comments," Jiang said. "The Chinese nation has the fine tradition of living up to its promises."
Jiang said the TOC agreed to be part of the route, with the torch arriving from Vietnam on April, 30, 2008, and going on to China-controlled Hong Kong and Macau.
That route goes against the position of Taiwan's governing Democratic Progressive Party, which has pushed for a torch route that would reflect the island's separateness from China, from which it split amid civil war in 1949.
The DPP's preferred route would take the torch through Taiwan via two Asian nations other than China.
In a letter to Beijing organizers dated April 20, Tsai said: "My authorities request that the relay enter into Taipei and exit Taipei through third-party countries."
Jiang said Tsai had broken an agreement to participate that he'd already signed and accused Taiwan officials of "breaching the principles of the separation of politics and sports enshrined in the Olympic charter."
"We still hope that the Chinese Taipei Olympic committee and authorities will focus on the interests of our Taiwan compatriots and implement the consensus the two parties have reached."
Next year's relay begins on March 25 in Greece, goes to Beijing, and then winds across Asia, Europe, the Americas, Africa and then back to Asia and China before the torch ignites the cauldron at the opening ceremony on Aug. 8, 2008, in Beijing's 91,000-seat National Stadium.
In a separate incident, China said Friday it had expelled five Americans who staged an Olympic-related protest on Mount Everest to challenge China's rule over Tibet.
The five unfurled banners at a base camp of the world's highest mountain on the eve of the torch relay announcement.
The Foreign Ministry said the five were detained for "carrying out illegal activities aimed at splitting China," and that they had been expelled according to Chinese law.
China says it has ruled Tibet for centuries, although many Tibetans say their homeland was essentially an independent state for most of that time. Chinese communist troops occupied Tibet in 1951 and Beijing continues to rule the region.
