Posted on 02/01/2006 9:09:37 PM PST by jazzo
Forces Taiwan to forgo name, flag, anthem at tournament
Under pressure from China, Major League Baseball is forcing Taiwan to compete in the upcoming World Baseball Classic under the name "Chinese Taipei" and to not display the island nation's flag or have its anthem played.
Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo – a member of the House International Relations Committee – has written a letter of complaint to Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig, asking that Taiwan be given "fair treatment."
The inaugural tournament, March 3-20, includes teams from 16 nations. All but two have players under contract to Major League Baseball teams.
Tancredo said he was "saddened" to see that Taiwan is the only participant whose flag is not posted on the World Baseball Classic website. In its place is the Olympic banner.
For more than 20 years, he pointed out, pressure from the communist People's Republic of China has forced athletes from the Republic of China, or Taiwan, to compete under the "Chinese Taipei" moniker in the Olympic Games "even though Taiwan is not subject to the control of the unelected government in Beijing."
Barring Taiwan from playing its national anthem and displaying its flag when its athletes win medals even had been extended to spectators in some cases, the congressman noted.
"Such restrictions seem particularly ridiculous when one contrasts the treatment of Taiwan with the treatment of Puerto Rico," Tancredo wrote Selig. "Puerto Rico's status as a U.S. territory is not in dispute – yet their athletes have never been forced to use the name 'American San Juan' or compete under an alternative flag. So why is independent Taiwan subjected to these arbitrary requirements?"
Major League Baseball and the World Baseball Classic should not follow the example of the International Olympic Committee by acting as an "accomplice in communist China's illogical and obsessive effort to restrict the freedom and insult the dignity of the 23 million people who live in Taiwan," Tancredo said.
America's favorite pastime crumbles under communist pressure. Yippee!
Remember that putrid fruit Selig playing kissy face with Castro when they had that exhibition fiasco with the Orioles?
Not only have the y kowtowed to Beijing on this, but they went to extraordinary lengths to get the Cubans a permit ot be in the tournament.
Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart said his office had identified 22 players who had played in the major leagues in 2005 and 62 minor-leaguers who would have been eligible to play for Cuba under tournament rules. There are a few other such players, such as SS Rey Ordonez, who was in the majors through 2004, as well as defectors who have not yet received a contract. But MLB bent over backwards to get Castro's team into the WBC.
Meanwhile, they would not allow Nationals ace Livan Hernandez, a Cuban defector, to play for Puerto Rico, where he now lives, because he was a Cuban defector who, before his defection, played for Cuba in international competition.
The more tyrannical you are, the more Mud Selig will kiss your posterior.
So this is different from the Administration's China policy exactly... how?
Money talks. Always has. In baseball as well as business.
Come on. How many people in CHINA watch baseball? :P
I don't know how popular it is in China. It does have some popularity in Taiwan. They have a league and a few Taiwanese have mnade it to the major leagues, including Yankee P Chien-Ming Wang.
So the Yankees really do have pitching out the Wang? ^^
Well, they do have 7 starters.
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