China's state-run TV station censors Ma's ROC remarks

Taipei, March 29 (CNA) China's state-run CCTV has censored all mentions of the Republic of China (ROC, Taiwan's official title) made by Taiwan's former president, Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), in Nanjing, China on Tuesday.

During a visit to the complex housing Sun Yat-sen's (孫中山) mausoleum in Nanjing, Ma mentioned the ROC four times: once during a tribute to Sun, once in a public statement he gave in the compound, and twice when stating the dates of his visit and Sun's passing.

At the mausoleum, he also displayed a calligraphy work he created, the date of which Ma wrote as 2023 and "112," the number of years since the founding of the ROC.

Those elements were completely cut out of the CCTV's print and video coverage (both in Chinese) of Ma's visit to the mausoleum.

Despite Ma's references to the ROC in China, which does not acknowledge the ROC, politicians from Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) on Wednesday were critical of those efforts.

Asked about the ROC mentions, Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) said Ma on several occasions only used the ROC in abbreviated form when he should have said the name in full.

Also, at a meeting between Ma and Jiangsu Chinese Communist Party Municipal Committee Secretary Xin Changxing (信長星), Ma was referred to as a "former leader of the Taiwan region" and "Mr. Ma" after Ma called himself a "former Taiwan president," Chen said.

The ways in which Xin addressed Ma belittled the former president and Taiwan, Chen said during a visit to the Kaohsiung Municipal Ta-Tung Hospital.

Separately, Vice Premier Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) said the way in which Ma mentioned the ROC sounded as if it only existed in history books, when he should have mentioned that the ROC lives on today in Taiwan.

Opposition Kuomintang (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) on Wednesday described those criticisms as "nit-picking."

Ma highlighted the ROC on several occasions and called himself a former president and therefore stood his ground, Chu said.

On Wednesday morning, Ma visited the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders, where he described the massacre as "animalistic brutality rarely seen in human history" and choked up several times when responding to reporters' questions.

He also took the opportunity to underline the importance of avoiding a conflict between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait.