Olympic Torch Route Still Facing Obstacles

Charles Whelan of AFP has another great article that reveals more about the underlying tension surrounding China’s proposed Olympic torch route through Tibet and Taiwan. The issue remains twofold as “questions remain over the torch relay due to a political impasse with Taiwan and a controversial plan to take the flame atop Mount Everest.” SFT has voiced our opposition to China’s plan to bring the torch up Mount Everest and through Tibet; our members have sent over 3,000 emails to the International Olympic Committee, asking them to reject Beijing’s plan to use the torch route to legitimize their occupation of Tibet.

Much of the attention on the torch route to this point has focused on Taiwan. China’s politicization of the Olympic torch run is completely transparent as applied to Taiwan than to Tibet. China had the audacity to include Taiwan on the domestic leg of the torch run in their proposal to the IOC, something that has clearly infuriated the Taiwanese government.

Chinese spokesmodel Wang Wei has repeatedly claimed that a deal has been reached to bring the torch through Taiwan, but it sounds like none is in place.

However, [Taiwanese deputy chairman of the Mainland Affairs Council] Liu [Teh-hsun] in Taipei said that his government’s major concern was that Beijing would put the island in China’s domestic relay route rather than in the international circuit.

“We have made it clear that Taiwan’s title and status should be fully respected if the torch relay is to be held here,” he said.

Taiwan is rightly demanding that their sovereignty be respected by China. If the torch is to go through Taiwan, it must be as part of the international torch relay. China does not want to recognize Taiwan has being a sovereign country and thus they have put forward a torch route that is unacceptable to Taiwan. Radio Taiwan International reports, “Liu said one of the Taiwanese government’s conditions of granting consent to the torch relay is that its sovereignty would not be compromised.” The IOC has no standing to make decisions that compromise the sovereignty of any nation. To do so in this case would be to allow China to blatantly politicize the Olympics and explicitly use the Olympic torch to implement China’s controversial foreign policy of regional hegemony.

As I’ve said before, this should not be a hard decision for the IOC to make. They need to reject Beijing’s proposed torch route through Tibet and Taiwan in favor of one that does not travel through occupied territory or seek to challenge the sovereignty of other countries.