Taiwan president-elect says boycott possible

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan's president-elect said on Sunday he would consider boycotting the Beijing Olympics this summer if the crackdown worsened in Tibet, a move that would add new tension to long-strained ties between the island and China.

Ma Ying-jeou, who won the presidential race on Saturday by a landslide, told a news conference he would examine Chinese suppression of Tibetan protesters and the progress in Tibetan areas of China that have been rocked by protests.

"If the situation in Tibet worsens, we would consider the possibility of not sending athletes to the Games," said Ma, who has attended events in Taiwan to remember the bloody crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1989.

"I did this out of a deep commitment to human rights," he said. "I do criticize China's human rights record."

Ma's aides said earlier he would survey public opinion before deciding whether to send athletes to the August 2008 Olympics.

But Ma would risk "bankruptcy" to his otherwise China-conciliatory agenda if he carried out the boycott threat, said Hsu Yung-ming, a political science professor at Soochow University in Taiwan.

"So I'm suspicious of his statement," Hsu said.

Taiwan's view of China's first-ever Olympics was chilled by politics until the island's baseball team qualified for the Games on March 13. Taiwan is baseball crazy.

Beijing has claimed self-ruled Taiwan as its territory since defeated Nationalist forces fled there at the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949 and has pledged to bring the island under its rule, by force if necessary.

China has repeatedly called for the Olympics not to be politicized.

Taiwan has already refused to let the Olympic Torch relay come via the island.

Ma, who takes office on May 20, said he would not reconsider Taipei as the route stop because the island would be barred from flying its flag.

"Mainland China insists that where the torch goes we can't fly our flag and ... (we) cannot accept it," he added.

The relay starts on Monday when the Olympic flame is lit in Ancient Olympia, Greece. Beijing offered to run the torch through Taipei ahead of stops in Hong Kong and mainland China.

Officials under Taiwan's current government, which advocates formal independence from China rather than Ma's overall more conciliatory approach, rejected the torch in September because the route linked Taiwan to China, implying a single country.

But there could be more Olympic drama ahead, even if Ma decides not to boycott the Games.

Taiwan's National Olympic Committee could choose to invite Ma to attend the Games, as is its right as a member of the International Olympic Committee.

That may put Beijing in a difficult position, assuming Ma wanted to go.

"The Olympics will present a problem, because of the important symbolism of the Olympics for both sides," said Steve Tsang, Director of the Taiwan Studies Program at Oxford University.

"The Chinese won't let the Taiwanese spoil the Olympics, and the Taiwanese want to assert their sense of dignity in their representation at the Olympics -- and that's not going to be easy to be solved," he added.

(Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by David Fox)