GEORGE TOWN – A PKR backbencher has defended the move by the local organisers of the World Congress on Innovation and Technology here to bar a Taiwanese beauty contestant from bringing her country’s national flag onstage during an event last night.
Kebun Bunga assemblyman Jason Ong Khan Lee said that many countries, including Malaysia, as well as the United Nations subscribe to the One China policy.
So, it would be insensitive to allow the Taiwanese contestant to go on stage with the flag, he said.
“I think there is no offence intended and I hope the Taiwanese beauty can understand that there is nothing personal against her,” he said.
The contestant was participating in the ongoing annual Miss Asia Global pageant with the finals slated for this Sunday.
She was among some 40 participants.
Ong, who is the Penang PKR vice chairman, said that many countries ratified the One China policy agreement in 1992.
Taiwan is regarded by China as just part of the Fujian province after a civil war had raged between 1945 and 1949 in the most populated nation in the world.
Earlier, the organisers of the congress here had reportedly said that they had to abide by the One China policy set by the host country in asking the Taiwanese beauty queen not to bear her flag.
Malaysia follows the One China policy, and since this is a national event, the congress is obliged to abide by it, they said.
Miss Asia Global Taiwan 2022, Kao Man-jung, was photographed crying at the opening of the WCIT, according to an AFP report.
She is among the contestants who will vie for the Miss Asia Global title.
A Taiwanese Foreign Ministry spokesman claimed that China had pressured the organisers into barring Kao from waving the island nation’s flag on stage. – The Vibes, September 15, 2022
