Beijing, April 27:

Organizers of the 2008 Beijing Olympics announced grandiose plans for the torch relay, only to be engulfed by conflict over a proposed stop in China’s political rival, Taiwan.

Within hours of Beijing’s announcement Thursday of what would be the longest torch relay in Olympic history — a 137,000-kilometer, 130-day route that would cross five continents and scale Mt Everest — Taiwan rejected being included.

The episode underscores the deep mistrust between Beijing and Taipei, antagonists in an unresolved civil war. Aside from Taiwan, the torch is also supposed to pass through another political hotspot, Tibet which China has controlled for 57 years, often with heavy-handed rule.

At a ceremony attended by senior members of China’s ruling Communist Party and the International Olympic Committee, organizers unveiled the torch and showed a video laying out the proposed route. The relay will begin in Greece next year, go to Beijing, and then wind across Asia, Europe, the Americas, Africa and then back to Asia and China before the torch ignites the cauldron at the opening ceremony on August 8 in Beijing.