Foreign Minister Mark Chen (
"I hope we can use Taiwan as much as possible. The Foreign Ministry will discuss what we will call ourselves in official documents," Chen told reporters.
"But in our contacts with countries that don't recognize us, it is more appropriate to use Taiwan," he said.
According to a local newspaper yesterday, to avoid confusion with China and to simplify its name, the official title of "ROC" will gradually be replaced with the title "Taiwan."
"In response to President Chen Shui-bian's (
"In future, `ROC' will only be used in documents signed between Taiwan and its diplomatic allies. In documents with countries that don't recognize Taiwan and with international organizations, we will seek to use the name `Taiwan,'" the paper quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Michel Lu (
Depending on who and where you are, the island of Taiwan could be referred to by one of at least 14 names. Called the Republic of China (ROC) since 1949 when the Chinese Nationalists launched its government in exile after losing China to the communists, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government would like to see a return to the use of Taiwan.
After the UN expelled the ROC and recognized the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1971, Taiwan has increasingly found the name ROC troublesome because it indicates Taiwan is part of China and foreigners often mistake ROC for PRC.
Currently, Taiwan's formal title remains the ROC, with its embassies at 26 diplomatic allied countries reflecting that name, but informal titles such as "Chinese Taipei" have been used to join UN-related organizations, the International Olympic Committee and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation. In the Asian Development Bank, Taiwan is called "Taipei, China."
In 2002, Taiwan joined the World Trade Organization under the name of Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu (acronym TPKM -- Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu are offshore islets of Taiwan), and it is seeking to join the World Health Organization under a name yet to be decided.
In countries which do not recognize Taiwan, unofficial missions use ambiguous names like Coordination Council for North American Affairs -- as it is officially known in the US.
As China is increasing its isolation of Taiwan in the international arena, recent public opinion polls have shown that an increasing number Taiwanese want to change Taiwan's formal tile from "ROC" to "Taiwan" to reflect the nation's sovereignty and avoid ROC being mistaken for PRC by foreign countries.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater