Agreement is closer after mainland accepts to treat Taipei as one of the many foreign cities through which the torch will travel. Beijing demands however that no Taiwanese flag or symbol be visible. Route in Hong Kong is finalised; torch is scheduled to arrive on May 2.

Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Beijing and Taipei continue negotiating, hoping to reach “an agreement acceptable to both sides,” Taiwanese Premier Chang Chun-hsiung said yesterday.

A deal seemed close last Thursday when Jiang Xiaoyu , deputy chairman of the Beijing Olympic organising committee, announced that Taipei would be treated as one of the 22 "overseas" cities, rather than a territory with equal status to Hong Kong and Macau.

However, Tsai Chen-wei, chairman of Taiwan's Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee, returned empty handed from Beijing on Saturday even though only a small distance separated the parties.

The content of the talks will remain secret until the deal is finalised, but Taiwanese media, quoting unnamed sources in Beijing, said the mainland had demanded that no Taiwanese flags or emblems could appear in areas within 24 kilometres of the torch route, and the island's anthem could not be played within the same radius.

Beijing in April announced that the torch would travel from Vietnam to Taipei and then to Hong Kong and Macau, a move Taiwan said deliberately created the impression that Taipei was part of the mainland.

“For the sake of national dignity, we don't need this kind of humiliation from Beijing, and there is no need for the torch to come to Taiwan,” said yesterday Wang Xin-nan, legislative whip for the ruling Democratic Progressive Party.

In the meantime some of the details surrounding the route of the Olympic torch in Hong Kong have been leaked. It should reach the former British territory on May 2 from Taiwan and then move to Macau.

Some 120 torch-bearers will participate in the televised Hong Kong leg of the Olympic torch relay; some are even expected to take public transit.

The route they will travel should include many of Special Administrative Region’s cultural and iconic landmarks like the city's tallest skyscraper, Two IFC, City Hall and the Tsim Sha Tsui waterfront, which is a tourist haven with lots of shops and museums, and more broadly Hong Kong harbour, Timothy Fok Tsun-ting, president of the Sports Federation and Hong Kong Olympic Committee, said.

This is the first time Hong Kong has been included in the torch relay since 1964, when the Olympic Games were held in Tokyo.

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