A lawmaker demanded yesterday that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs within a year change "Taipei" to "Taiwan" in the names of the country's overseas representative offices.
During a legislative session, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Hsieh Ming-yuan (謝明源) asked Vice Minister Michael Kau (高英茂) to alter the names of at least half of Taiwan's representative offices in countries that have no official ties with Taiwan.
Besides the embassies serving Taiwan's 26 allies, which all adopt the name the "Republic of China (ROC)," most of the country's overseas representative offices use "Taipei" to represent the country.
Kau, who acknowledged confusion caused by the various titles used by Taiwan's overseas offices, promised to work hard to rectify the matter but said such a task faced unusually complex difficulties.
The progress of the name-changing move really depends on the attitude of the countries where the representative offices are located, Kau said.
"We need to obtain these countries' consent to change the names of our representative offices. Pressure from China will certainly hamper the progress," he said.
However, the mounting calls to change the country's name and the stark diplomatic prospect the country faces propel the ministry to work on a name that will clearly distinguish Taiwan from the People's Republic of China, Kau said.
The name, said Kau, has to both abide by the Constitution's articles regulating the country's title and "manifest Taiwan's sovereignty."
The government, in order to sidestep China's opposition to its bid to enter international organizations, has managed to invent a number of names to represent the country.
"These different names can be used in different situations," Kau said.
Taiwan's allies may call the country ROC or Taiwan. Besides, in joining international organizations, the country prefers to use four names, in order of preference: "ROC," "Taiwan," "Taiwan, ROC," and "ROC, Taiwan," he said.
The title the country adopts in the World Trade Organization, "Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu," a name representing the nation and its major isles, can also be used on certain international occasions, Kau said.
He said that changing the country's name alone cannot solve Taiwan's diplomatic dilemma.
"We need to figure out strategies to cripple China's intervention into Taiwan's political and economic relations with other countries," he said.
The issue of the country's name has also caused overseas Taiwanese a lot of problems, Chang Fu-mei (張富美), chairwoman of the Cabinet's Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission, said yesterday.
Even the commission's name itself is undergoing examination because it is confusing, Chang said.
"We are considering changing the institution's name into the Overseas Compatriot Affairs Commission," she said.
Overseas Taiwanese, said Chang, have complained for a long time that Taiwan's overseas agencies have often been mistaken as China's institutions because their names fail to clearly convey the country's identity.
"The commission and overseas Taiwanese are discussing which name would be the most proper for the country's overseas agencies to use," Chang said.
The commission, Chang said, is preparing to rename all of its 17 overseas Taiwanese cultural centers, after the ministry decides how to designate Taiwan's overseas representative offices so that the names can be consistent.
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