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Everything seemed to be going well for Miss Canada, Anastasia Lin, during an interview Wednesday promoting the Miss World pageant – until she was asked whether she would be attending a screening of her new movie, which has reportedly enraged officials in her native China.

Lin shot a glance at the four pageant officials assigned to listen in. “You can ask them,” she told a Washington Post reporter.

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One of the officials maintained that Lin could go “if she has spare time” but that she hadn’t yet asked to go.

That’s when things got testy, Lin noting sharply that the screening’s hosts had repeatedly sent requests on her behalf, her handlers insisting she just needed to abide by certain protocols.

It was a tempered explosion of the tensions surrounding Lin’s presence at the beauty contest, taking place Sunday at the new MGM National Harbor casino complex in Maryland.

Miss Canada has found herself at odds with Miss World organizers, in a conflict stretching back more than a year regarding her advocacy work against human rights abuses in China – historically, a major sponsor and booster of the pageant.