SEEING RED: China threatened to have the African nation deny any Taiwanese entry if participants dared to show up to a Hakka Affairs Council culinary and musical event
Taipei Times
Date: Feb 26, 2018
By: Wu Hsin-tien and William Hetherington / Staff reporter, with staff writer
The Hakka Affairs Council (HAC) yesterday condemned China for pressuring a Mauritius
A poster provided by the Hakka Affairs Council for the canceled Traditional Hakka Cuisine Food Festival, printed by the Labourdonnais Waterfront Hotel in Port Louis, Mauritius, where it was to be held, is pictured yesterday. Photo: Wu Hsin-tien, Taipei Times
hotel into canceling a cultural exchange event planned to take place there this week.
The event, a celebration of Hakka cuisine, was to be held from tomorrow until Wednesday next week at the Labourdonnais Waterfront Hotel in Port Louis, the capital, but the hotel on Saturday afternoon notified the council that it would cancel the event, citing pressure from the local Chinese embassy, HAC Deputy Minister Yang Chang-chen (楊長鎮) told a news conference in Taipei yesterday.
The embassy also threatened that any attempt by council Department of Culture and Education Director Fan Tso-ming (范佐銘) or others associated with the planned event to visit Mauritius would result in them being denied entry and might affect the ability of other Taiwanese to visit the country, he said.
The council is today holding the same event in South Africa, where activities began yesterday, after which it planned to take the event to Mauritius tomorrow, as 80 percent of ethnic Chinese residents there are of Hakka heritage. [FULL STORY]
