TAIPEI, June 30 — Taiwanese singer and activist Panai yesterday known as at one of the prestigious leisure occasions within the Chinese-speaking world for individuals to not forget China’s bloody 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters at Tiananmen Square.
Chinese artists in recent times have largely stayed away from Taiwan’s Golden Melody Awards given renewed rigidity between democratically ruled Taiwan and China, which views the island as its personal territory. The reference to Tiananmen is unlikely to endear Beijing to the ceremony.
Taking the stage after successful for greatest Taiwanese language album on the ceremony in Taipei, Panai famous that this was the thirty fifth anniversary of the awards.
“The Tiananmen Square incident can be precisely 35 years outdated, let’s not forget,” she stated.
Chinese tanks rolled into the sq. earlier than daybreak on June 4, 1989, crushing weeks of pro-democracy demonstrations by college students and staff. China has by no means offered a full loss of life toll, however rights teams and witnesses say the determine might run into the hundreds. Public dialogue of what occurred is taboo in China, although it’s freely talked about in Taiwan.
China says it “way back” reached a transparent conclusion concerning the occasions of 1989. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Panai has campaigned for years for the rights of Taiwan’s indigenous individuals.
“Democracy is a prolonged and never a straightforward journey, we’re pressured as we don’t know if we will likely be bullied by a ‘greater’ energy,” she advised reporters backstage after her win.
“The purpose why I discussed that occasion on stage is as a result of Taiwan’s democracy is a course of that each one of us must cherish; our freedom and freedom of speech is what we have to defend.”
Taiwan President Lai Ching-te, quoting Panai’s Tiananmen feedback on his Facebook web page, praised the liberty artists have in Taiwan.
“Music is life, and music can be unfettered freedom. We will proceed to guard and defend the liberty of all musicians to create,” he wrote.
No Chinese singers attended this 12 months’s awards, regardless of a number of excessive profile nominations, together with Xu Jun successful for greatest composer.
Another Chinese singer, Jude Chiu, did arrive in Taiwan however returned to the nation earlier than the awards for well being causes, Taiwan’s official Central News Agency reported.
While Taiwan has solely 23 million individuals, its pop music scene has an outsized cultural affect throughout East Asia, particularly in China, partially resulting from creativity unencumbered by censorship.
The awards have fun not solely Mandopop however artists singing in Taiwanese — Hokkien, Hakka and indigenous languages like Bunun — a visual signal of the Taiwan authorities’s efforts to advertise as soon as suppressed tongues. — eNM
