TAIPEI – China has axed a visit by a popular Taiwanese children’s choir after they sang the national anthem at the inauguration of the island’s new president, as ties between the rivals grow increasingly frosty.

The choir is the latest casualty since Beijing-sceptic Tsai Ing-wen won the presidency in January, bringing an end to an eight-year rapprochement with China.

Her inauguration in May centred around Taiwan’s unique history and culture – a theme likely to have irked Beijing which still sees the self-ruling island as part of its territory.

The aboriginal Puzangalan Choir made a name for itself island-wide after singing a moving rendition of the national anthem on stage during the celebrations.

But Chinese authorities seem to have been less impressed.

Choir organisers say city officials have cancelled their performance at a children’s choral festival in Zhongshan, in the southern province of Guangdong, due to take place in July.

“The invitation from the mainland is gone,” said a post on the choir’s Facebook page.

“The kids can hardly understand how this happened.” Choir executive Tsai Yi-fang confirmed the concert had been cancelled.

“This has badly hurt our children,” he told AFP.

The choir had been hoping to raise funds through the Guangdong performance to travel to a singing competition in Hungary in August.

President Tsai pledged Tw$500,000 ($15,430) to their cause after learning of the cancellation.

“This is the voice of Taiwan. Together, we will let the children sing to the whole world,” she said in a statement on her Facebook page.

Local media reported choir leaders as saying they had been told by city officials that the cancellation was due to political “sensitivities”.

Comments posted on the choir’s Facebook page pledged help and support.

“Every one of us on the island who think he or she is Taiwanese would feel proud of you. You represent the roots of Taiwan culture,” said one post.

“The more the Chinese on the other side suppress, the more it shows that you have been doing the right thing,” said another.

This is not the first time Chinese authorities have banned musical performers from Taiwan for political reasons.

Taiwan’s pop diva A-Mei was blacklisted by China for several years after she sang the island’s national anthem at the 2000 inauguration of then-president Chen Shui-bian, known for promoting the island’s independence.

Taiwan is a fully fledged democracy but has never formally declared independence since splitting from the mainland in 1949 after a civil war.

Tensions eased markedly under Tsai’s Beijing-friendly predecessor Ma Ying-jeou.

But warming ties left voters increasingly wary that Beijing was seeking to erode Taiwan’s sovereignty, leading to a landslide victory for Tsai.

Beijing is highly suspicious of her Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) which is traditionally pro-independence.

MANILA – US fighter planes have arrived in the Philippines for a training mission and operations to ensure access to the disputed South China Sea, the US Navy said Thursday.

The Philippines’ longtime ally deployed the aircraft to train Filipino pilots as Manila remains locked in an increasingly tense maritime dispute with Beijing.

The US Navy made a veiled reference to so-called freedom of navigation operations in which Washington sends a ship or plane to pass by a Chinese-claimed island to reject its claims of sovereignty.

“Growler aircraft will support routine operations that enhance regional maritime domain awareness and assure access to the air and maritime domains in accordance with international law,” the US Navy said in a statement, referring to the EA-18G Growler airborne electronic attack planes.

Manila has been improving its defence ties with the United States, its former colonial ruler, to help boost its ability to defend its territory.

The Philippines hosts the temporary detachment at the former US airbase of Clark, a two-hour drive north of Manila.

The American detachment is composed of four aircraft and about 120 personnel, coming over a month after annual war games with the Philippines.

The US deployed similar detachments throughout the Asia-Pacific for exercises with other allies, according to the statement.

Philippine Air Force spokesman Colonel Araus Robert Musico told AFP the mission was not directed toward any country but would boost the capacity of one of Asia’s weakest armed forces.

“The advantage to us is we can interoperate with US troops. We’ve also done a lot of missions for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, how to respond when there’s a disaster in open seas,” he said.

In April, the United States said it launched joint South China Sea patrols with the Philippines as China builds artificial islands in the disputed waters to press its claim over the territory.

The Philippines is awaiting a ruling from a UN-backed tribunal against China’s claim to most of the South China Sea.

Taiwan, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam also have competing claims to parts of the sea, a key waterway for global commerce.

TOKYO – A Japanese man who stabbed his father to death with a chopstick was arrested on Thursday, police said.

Michikazu Ikeuchi, 51, admitted that he stabbed his 80-year-old father in the throat with a 30-centimetre- (12- inch) long wooden, cooking chopstick on Wednesday night after a quarrel at their home in Osaka, western Japan, according to police.

“Ikeuchi told us he had tried to stop his parents from arguing and he did not intend to kill his father,” an Osaka police official told AFP.

“He said in his anger he waved the chopstick in front of his father but before he knew it, it got stuck in him,” the officer said.

Ikeuchi, who lives with his parents and his brother’s family, called emergency services for an ambulance after stabbing his father.

BEIJING – China criticised US President Barack Obama on Thursday for hosting the Dalai Lama at the White House, despite efforts to avoid irking Beijing by holding the meeting off-camera and out of the public eye.

Obama carried out what has become a political rite in Washington, spiriting the exiled Tibetan religious leader into the White House through the back door – and prompting the usual Chinese denunciations.

“No matter in what way the US leader met with the Dalai Lama, the meeting violated the US promises of acknowledging Tibet as a part of China, not supporting Tibet independence and not supporting separatist activities,” Lu Kang, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, told reporters in Beijing.

“Such a meeting will hurt China-US mutual trust and cooperation.” Since coming to office, Obama has hosted the Dalai Lama four times. Each time, Obama has tried to limit the fallout by holding the meeting behind closed doors.

Obama was criticised in 2010 for obliging the 80-year-old, clad in his characteristic red robes and flip flops, to leave the White House through a rear entrance and walk past piles of snow and bags of rubbish.

This latest confab took place in the Map Room, not the Oval Office, and the press was not invited – which meant no images of the two Nobel peace laureates emerged from the meeting.

“The personal nature of their meeting would explain why the president received the Dalai Lama in the White House residence, as opposed to the Oval Office,” said White House press secretary Josh Earnest.

Obama calls the monk, who is revered by Tibetans but portrayed by Beijing as a dangerous separatist, “a good friend”.

He made a highly-publicised public appearance with the Dalai Lama last year at a prayer breakfast in Washington, calling him “a powerful example of what it means to practice compassion”.

The spiritual leader – who has lived in exile in the north Indian town of Dharamsala since a failed 1959 uprising – has for decades called for more Tibetan autonomy rather than independence.

Beijing maintains he is a “wolf in monk’s clothing” and vigorously lobbies – often successfully – against foreign leaders meeting him.

In a statement after the meeting, the White House said Obama had “encouraged meaningful and direct dialogue between the Dalai Lama and his representatives with Chinese authorities to lower tensions and resolve differences”.

Obama also “emphasised his strong support for the preservation of Tibet’s unique religious, cultural and linguistic traditions, and the equal protection of human rights of Tibetans in China”, according to the White House statement.

But some exiled Tibetans questioned the value of such meetings, urging bolder action from Washington.

“This will be the fourth time President Obama and His Holiness the Dalai Lama are meeting, yet there has been no significant change on the issue of Tibet,” said Tenzing Jigme, head of the Dharamsala-based Tibetan Youth Congress, which lobbies for independence rather than greater autonomy.

“The situation inside Tibet is dire and requires immediate intervention and so I urge President Obama to take a strong stand and pressure the Chinese government to resolve the issue of Tibet.” Many Tibetans consider any criticism of the Dalai Lama to be heresy, but some younger exiles argue that his long campaign of diplomacy has achieved little and call for more assertive policies.

China has ruled Tibet since the 1950s and many Tibetans say Beijing represses their Buddhist religion and culture – charges China denies.

More than 130 ethnic Tibetans have set themselves on fire since 2009 in protest at Beijing’s rule, campaign groups and overseas media have said. Most of them have died.

The Dalai Lama has described the protests as acts of desperation that he is powerless to stop.