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China flexes diplomatic muscle to stymie Uighurs
2009-09-19
TAIPEI/BEIJING (Reuters) - South Korea and a city in Taiwan have moved to deny exiled Muslim Uighurs from China's far-west platforms for voicing their cause, apparently bowing to fears that Beijing could use its growing muscle to hit back. Taiwan's second-largest city, Kaohsiung, is backing away from plans to show a documentary about Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer that China has condemned, while South Korea has barred another prominent Uighur exile from entering the country. China accuses Kadeer and her World Uyghur Congress of promoting violent opposition to Beijing's rule in the far western region of Xinjiang and of stoking deadly riots in regional capital Urumqi in July. She denies the claims. The film had been scheduled to be screened at next month's annual film festival in Taiwan's southern port city of Kaohsiung, whose mayor Chen Chu is backed by the island's anti-China opposition Democratic Progressive Party. "We've had plans to show the film, but we're now doing a re-evaluation," Kaohsiung spokesman Chang Chia-hsing said. The documentary was first screened in Australia, where Chinese diplomats vigorously protested over what they said was unfair publicity for Kadeer. A Taiwanese DPP official said canning a screening at China's behest would be wrong. "We have the freedom to choose what movies we want to see," said Hsiao Bi-khim, the DPP's international affairs director. "It's part of freedom of speech and creative expression. China has no right to influence what movies people want to see." China has claimed self-ruled Taiwan since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949, but ties have warmed under Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou of the China-friendly Nationalist Party (KMT). Both Kaohsiung and the DPP had already angered Beijing by inviting exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama to visit and pray for the victims of a recent typhoon. China also accuses him of promoting separatism. The Nobel Peace Prize winner says he seeks only greater Tibetan autonomy. Beijing has already shown signs of punishing Kaohsiung, an industrial city which has struggled through the global economic downturn and is looking to tourism as a new income source, by stopping Chinese tourists visiting. Some Chinese state-run travel agents have been asked to avoid Kaohsiung hotels since the Dalai Lama's visit, contributing to a marked September decline in room bookings, said Taipei Association of Travel Agents official Anthony Liao. South Korea, once a bastion of anti-communism and now with close economic ties to China, has likewise been drawn into Beijing's campaign against overseas Uighurs. Seoul this week stopped the World Uyghur Congress' general secretary Dolkun Isa -- a German citizen -- from entering South Korea to attend a forum on democracy, saying he was on a blacklist. The government has declined further comment. The group said it had no doubt China was behind the move and condemned South Korea for giving in to pressure. "South Korea, as a sovereign democratic nation, barred and continuously detained peaceful pro-democracy activists from attending democracy forums in the country upon (the) Chinese government's pressure," it said in an emailed statement. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman denied knowledge of the case at a regular briefing on Thursday. (Editing by Nick Macfie)
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