Taiwan likely to upset China with Tibet, Uighur films

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan will screen films about Tibetans and Uighurs, China's most restive ethnic groups, on Thursday, the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of China, sponsors said, likely to anger its diplomatic rival.

"The 10 Conditions of Love," a documentary on Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer, will be screened on Wednesday and Thursday. A film on Tibet by Tibetan director Dhondup Wangchen, who has been jailed in China since March, will be shown on Thursday.

China considers self-ruled Taiwan a breakaway province and has not ruled out the use of force to achieve unification.

It accuses Kadeer of orchestrating July's ethnic violence in Xinjiang, a largely ethnic Uighur region of northwest China, which killed about 200 people. She denies the charge.

China also faces unrest in Tibet. Local Taiwan opposition leaders angered China by inviting Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, labeled a separatist by Beijing, to visit in early September.

China is pulling out all the stops to ensure that nothing spoils the party when the world's third-largest economy celebrates six decades of the People's Republic with a massive parade on Thursday.

"We're showing the Kadeer film because China has protested against it, making it a focus of public attention, so Taiwan viewers are keen on seeing it now," said Tsai Chi-hsun, secretary general of the Taiwan Association for Human Rights, one of several sponsors.

Beijing protested against the film's screening in Australia in August and its first showing in Taiwan last week, warning against action that could further hurt the island's relations with Beijing.

China has claimed Taiwan since 1949, when Mao Zedong's forces won the Chinese civil war and Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists (KMT) fled to the island. But today's ruling KMT has eased tension with China since mid-2008 by negotiating trade deals.

(Reporting by Ralph Jennings; Editing by Nick Macfie)