China pressured Munich institute to cancel Taiwan author event: Diplomat

Taipei, Oct. 5 (CNA) The Chinese consulate in Munich unsuccessfully pressured a local literary institute to cancel a talk by Taiwanese author Yang Shuang-tzu (楊双子) last week, according to Chao Yen-ching (趙彥清), director of Taiwan's representative office in Munich.

Chao told CNA that Tanja Graf, managing director of Literaturhaus München, which organized the event, had confirmed the attempted interference.

Ahead of Yang's talk last Thursday, officials from China's consulate in Munich contacted the institute and asked it to cancel the event, offering to fund and arrange an alternative featuring a Chinese author, Chao said.

The institute refused the request, he said.

Translator trouble

Yang's public reading and discussion about her International Booker Prize-winning novel "Taiwan Travelogue" (臺灣漫遊錄) was also overshadowed by controversy involving her interpreter.

According to Chao, the Chinese-German interpreter at the event, Tsao Chang-chen (曹昌振), was hired by Literaturhaus München.

He said Yang's talk took place during Munich's Oktoberfest and that, to save money, the institute hired a local translator who had been recommended by an association of Taiwanese expatriates in Berlin.

Tsao, who was hired for the event, did not bring a pen or paper onstage for Yang's talk and said before the event that there would be some political topics he would be "unable to translate," Chao said.

Tsao failed to translate the participants' German remarks for Yang and, when Yang spoke, avoided translating terms such as "Republic of China," "Taiwan" and "China," Chao said.

According to Chao, Tsao translated Yang's reference to China's "cognitive warfare" as "misinformation." When Yang spoke of "the immense threat from China," Tsao rendered it as a threat from "a very big neighbor," prompting the organizer to clarify that the neighbor was China.

After receiving complaints from Taiwanese attendees, Chao said he lodged a complaint with Tsao and raised the matter with the event's moderator, the book's German translator and Literaturhaus München.

"The organizers were shocked and embarrassed" to learn what had happened, he said.

Chao added that several people in the audience whom he described as Chinese-looking tried to ask politically "sensitive" questions during the event, though Yang "answered very well and was not affected by it."

While he said he had no evidence of Chinese involvement in the interpreter controversy, Chao said it was a fact that the Chinese consulate had tried to get the event canceled and may also have "exercised influence" over people attending it.

Yang later told CNA that the alleged Chinese interference in her event only proved that "literature and politics cannot be separated."