Social Democratic Party (SDP) member Miao Po-ya (苗博雅) yesterday decried the International University Sports Federation’s (FISU) indiscriminate substitution of “Taiwan” with “Chinese Taipei” in media brochures issued by the Taipei Universiade Organizing Committee.
The Summer Universiade is to begin on Saturday next week.
The federation should have listed the nation, referred to as “Chinese Taipei,” under “T” as per its code, TPE, in accordance with the International Olympic Committee’s rules, Miao said.
However, it was listed under “C” after China, adding to confusion, Miao said.
The federation’s actions breach an agreement between the International Olympic Committee and the Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee made in 1981, which established the so-called “Olympic model,” which is followed by Taiwan’s Sports Administration when registering or holding international sporting events, she said.
The “Olympic model” does not ban the use of “Taiwan,” Miao said, citing as an example the 2009 International World Games in Kaohsiung, which followed the model. Taiwan was mentioned several times in an introduction to the 2009 event on its Web site, Miao said.
An introduction to Kaohsiung’s sports facilities, referred to Taiwan as a “country.”
Under the IOC model the title “Chinese Taipei” only applies to the team name for sporting events, the flag and the emblem, but the federation has told organizers to change “Taiwan” to “Chinese Taipei island” and “New Taiwan dollar” into “Chinese Taipei dollar” in brochures, Miao said.
Miao said that the federation’s subordination of Taiwan was likely deliberate, as it has extensive experience supervising international university-level sports events.
Yang Liguo (楊立國), who is vice chairman and secretary-general of Federation of University Sports of China, which is overseen by the Chinese Communist Party, and Xue Yangqing, who is on the federation’s media and communication committee, might have exerted Beijing’s influence on the foundation, causing it to “mix up” Taiwan’s place on its Web site and direct the foundation to strictly adhere to “Chinese Taipei” when translating the brochures.
The Taipei Universiade Organizing Committee changed “Chinese Taipei” to “Taiwan” in sections of the brochure and on Thursday published an updated online version, she said.
If the foundation rejects the changes, the committee should file with the Court of Arbitration for Sports to rule on the federation’s seemingly excessive demand that the committee only use “Chinese Taipei” in brochures, she said.
The court is an independent institution based in Lausanne, Switzerland, that resolves sports-related disputes. Its jurisdiction is recognized by all Olympic sports federations.
“Taiwanese should be allowed to be the masters of their name after the government spent NT$19.8 billion [US$650 million] of taxpayers’ money to host the Universiade,” she said.
Committee spokesman Yang Ching-tang (楊景棠) yesterday said that the changes were pending approval by the FISU.
Despite the online update, it still has a passage that reads: “Bravo the Bear, the Universiade mascot, is based on the Formosan black bear, a species endemic to Chinese Taipei.”
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday. China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College. China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan
The next minimum wage hike is expected to exceed NT$30,000, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday during an award ceremony honoring “model workers,” including migrant workers, at the Presidential Office ahead of Workers’ Day today. Lai said he wished to thank the awardees on behalf of the nation and extend his most sincere respect for their hard work, on which Taiwan’s prosperity has been built. Lai specifically thanked 10 migrant workers selected for the award, saying that although they left their home countries to further their own goals, their efforts have benefited Taiwan as well. The nation’s industrial sector and small businesses lay
RSS