VANCOUVER – It has become surprisingly clear that China is disgusted with the idea of Vancouver and a Taiwanese municipality forming a “sister city” partnership.
What is a little less clear is that such a thing is even in the works.
In an incident that observers say shows how sensitive Beijing is becoming to the international community’s desire for closer ties with Taiwan, China’s consulate general in Vancouver, which is tasked with carrying out diplomatic and other duties. Guy, this week published a statement on its website citing reports in the English and Chinese media that Vancouver was planning a sister city relationship with Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
Beijing claims autonomous dominance over Taiwan.
“If the city of Vancouver establishes sister cities, friendly cities and friendly cities with Taiwan in the form of official authorization, approval of the city council or official exchange in writing, they are all official exchanges with Taiwan and all belong to the official exchange mechanism,” read in the notice.
“We strongly oppose this.”
The statement, which was issued only in Chinese, says it expects Vancouver to handle the situation “prudently.”
But Alvin Singh, communications director for Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart, said he has not seen a formal request for a relationship between Vancouver and Kaohsiung.
“There hasn’t been a request from a group yet and I don’t know if there will be one,” Singh said.
He suggested the rumors developed after Stewart recently attended a Taiwan community event.
A website promoting the city’s September TAIWANfest also features video greetings from Stewart and Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chi-Mai. Chen said he looked forward to “more exchanges and collaboration” with Vancouver.
China’s consulate general did not respond to a request for comment from the Star on Thursday.
Charles Burton, an expert on China’s relations with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, said Beijing is closely watching the international community’s relationship with Taiwan, especially as parts of Europe consider deepening ties.
“They are probably very concerned that this will spread to other regions of the world,” Burton said.
“Particularly Canada, since obviously, at the popular level, there is a lot of discontent with relations with China and a growing desire not to respect more the demands of the People’s Republic of China that Western governments should avoid the democratic government of Taiwan.”
Tension between Taiwan and mainland China has increased in recent months with China flying several fighter jets towards Taiwan. Western allies have expressed their support for Taiwan with increased involvement in the region and other efforts.
Western nations primarily adhere to the one-China policy, which prevents recognizing Taiwan as a separate country as part of diplomatic relations with China. But support for democracy is still shown, even recently, when the United States indicated it wanted to deepen ties.
Burton also said he is concerned that the consul general will publish the statement in Chinese, but not in English or French.
He said it shows the Chinese government’s desire to “consolidate” the identification of mainland Chinese in Canada with Beijing.
A Chinese organization in Vancouver is asking the federal government to confront the consulate over the comments.
Victor Ho of the Sino-Canadian Human Rights Concern Group said that the issue at the municipal level is not the province of Beijing and is not a matter for China.
“It’s purely municipal politics,” Ho said of any possible sister city arrangement. “It is not related to any diplomatic policy.”
Ho, whose organization is made up of several well-known Chinese community leaders, said he believes the message was only in Chinese because the mainland Chinese government is trying to manipulate the Chinese-language media in Canada.
He wants the foreign affairs department to stand up to “protect the integrity” of Canadian municipal governments, fearing that cities will not rebuke the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) attempts to influence them themselves.
“They want to dominate politics with their own realities,” he said. “I think our municipalities don’t have the guts to resist the CCP’s policy.”
Sister city relationships aimed at facilitating cultural and economic exchanges between Canadian municipalities and foreign counterparts are common, and Vancouver has several of them, including with Guangzhou, China. Winnipeg has a long-standing sister city agreement with Taichung in Taiwan.
With files from The Associated Press
Reference-www.thestar.com