Beijing riles Taiwan over 2008 torch route

Beijing courted a political confrontation with Taiwan yesterday by including the self-governed island as a "China leg" stopover in the torch relay schedule for next year's Olympic Games.

The Taipei Olympics committee said in a statement it was "an attempt by China to engineer the relay route so that Chinese Taipei is included in China's domestic relay route, thereby obviously undermining our sovereign status".

The 130-day, 137,000-km route is the longest ever and includes an attempt to take the flame to the top of Mount Everest as well as stops on all of the five continents.

The controversial stop in Taiwan will be followed by Hong Kong and Macau before a 113-stop journey through mainland China brings it to the National Stadium in time to light the cauldron at the opening ceremony on August 8 next year.

Taiwan said it had informed Beijing this week it would not accept a place on the torch relay if the flame entered or exited the island via mainland China or Hong Kong and Macau, which are Special Administrative Regions ruled by Beijing.

The inclusion of Taiwan is important to the Beijing government - which considers the island a rebel province to be reunited with the mainland by force if necessary - and it wants the stopover there to be part of the "China leg" of the tour.

The flame will be lit in Ancient Olympia, Greece, on March 25 next year, travel to Athens and then on to Beijing on March 31. From Beijing it will go through Central Asia and into Europe, on to the Americas, through Africa then back to Asia.