China ‘dictatorial, contemptible’: foreign ministry

By Lin Chia-nan / Staff reporter





The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday protested after China forced the organizers of the International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV) in South Korea to change Taiwan’s status from a “nation” to a “region” in a set of slides.

At the opening of the conference, which took place at the COEX Convention and Exhibition Center in Seoul from Tuesday to yesterday, the organizers released a set of introductory slides containing graphics showing the numbers of publications or attendees per nation, including Taiwan.

However, the titles on the slides were later changed to “per country/region,” because of a complaint filed by a Chinese participant.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Joanne Ou speaks at a news conference at the ministry in Taipei on Oct. 9. Photo: Lu Yi-hsuen, Taipei Times

“Taiwan is wrongly listed as a country. I think this may be because the person making this chart is not familiar with the history of Taiwan,” the Chinese participant wrote in a letter titled “A mistake at the opening ceremony of ICCV 2019,” which was published on Chinese social media under the name Cen Feng (岑峰), who is a cofounder of leiphone.com.

The ministry yesterday said that China’s behavior was contemptible and it would not change the fact that Taiwan does not belong to China.

Beijing using political pressure to intervene in an academic event shows its dictatorial nature and that to China, politics outweigh everything else, ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou (歐江安) said in a statement.

The ministry has instructed its New York office to express its concern to the headquarters of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, which cosponsored the conference, asking it not to cave in to Chinese pressure and improperly list Taiwan as part of China’s territory, she said.

Beijing has to forcefully tout its “one China” principle in the global community because it is already generally accepted that Taiwan is not part of China, she added.

As China attempts to force other nations to accept its “one China” principle and sabotage academic freedom, Taiwan hopes that nations that share its freedoms and democratic values can work together to curb Beijing’s aggression, she added.