BEIJING - CHINA has pulled out of the Tokyo International Film Festival, which started at the weekend, in a row over the official name of the Taiwan delegation, state media said on Monday.
The head of the Chinese delegation, Jiang Ping, pulled the plug on Beijing's participation in protest after organisers refused to change the name of the island's contingent from 'Taiwan' to 'China's Taiwan' or 'Chinese Taipei'. He blamed the festival authorities for the flap.
But the dispute comes amid a simmering row between China and Japan over a contested island chain in the East China Sea, sparked more than six weeks ago when Tokyo arrested a Chinese fishing boat captain near the rocky islets. China and Taiwan split at the end of a civil war in 1949. Beijing still considers the self-ruled island part of its territory awaiting reunification.
'It is regretful that the Chinese delegation has decided to pull out of festival-related event because the organisers covertly violated the One-China Policy,' the Global Times quoted Mr Jiang as saying.
'It has nothing to do with our Taiwan compatriots. It is the fault of the Tokyo organisers,' said Mr Jiang, who is also a senior official in the film division of China's State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT). Nine Chinese-language films that were to have been screened in a China-specific part of the festival have been pulled, the Global Times reported.
One of two Chinese films in competition, The Piano In A Factory, has also been withdrawn, but the other, Buddha Mountain, will be screened, the newspaper quoted a public relations officer linked to that movie as saying. In Taipei, government spokesman Johnny Chiang said the delegation from Beijing 'should not use politics to interfere in movie exchanges'. -- AFP
Source: ST Online
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