China has pulled out of the 23rd Tokyo International Film Festival due to a sovereignty issue over Taiwan and announced it will boycott other festival-related events.

The head of the Chinese delegation, Jiang Ping, told festival organizers that the Taiwan delegation must not attend the festival under the name Taiwan, but as "Chinese Taipei," which Taiwan used while participating in the Olympic Games, shortly before celebrities began to walk down a green carpet to mark the start of the festival.

"We protested against the organizers introducing the two delegations as 'China and Taiwan,' said Jiang, also deputy director-general of the Film Bureau of the State Administration of Radio, Film and TV (SARFT). "And our request to introduce Taiwan as 'Chinese Taipei or China's Taiwan' was rejected by the organizers."

"It is regretful that the Chinese delegation has decided to pull out of festival-related events because the organizers covertly violated the one-China Policy," Jiang continued.

"It has nothing to do with our Taiwan compatriots. It is the fault of the Tokyo organizers," he added.

The Taiwan delegation, headed by Chen Chih-kuan, director of the Government Information Office's Department of Motion Pictures Affairs, told reporters that art should be separate from politics.

He added that the delegation has applied to attend this year's event under the name of Taiwan in past years.

Nine Chinese-language films that were to be screened during the Chinese film series at the festival will no longer be presented, local media reported.

Two other Chinese films, Buddha Mountain and The Piano in a Factory, are set to participate in the competition section of the festival.

Jin Yu, a public relations officer for the latter film, told the Global Times that the film will still compete at the festival, while the team behind Buddha Mountain said it would follow SARFT instructions.

China maintains that Taiwan is its inalienable part. Taiwan was under Japanese colonial rule from 1895 to 1945.

Liu Junhong, a research fellow with the Institute of Japanese Studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, told the Global Times that the Taiwan issue is not a purely cultural and economic issue but also political.

The Tokyo International Film Festival is being held amid simmering tensions between Tokyo and Beijing over the sovereignty of the Diaoyu Islands.

(Global Times October 25, 2010)