The leader of the Taiwan Statebuilding Party has called for the “outdated Chinese Taipei designation” to be discarded and urged the government to use “Team Taiwan” and “Taiwanese athletes” for all sports competitions after Mongolia barred the Kaohsiung-based Taipower FC soccer team from entering the country due to China’s coronavirus outbreak, leading to a cancelation of the team’s Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Cup match against Ulan Bator City on Wednesday.
The AFC on Wednesday announced that it was canceling that day’s preliminary round of the AFC Cup at the MFF Football Centre in the country’s capital, Ulan Bator, as well as a return leg of the two sides scheduled for Wednesday next week in Kaohsiung.
The move was decided at an AFC emergency meeting, where executives talked to both teams about rescheduling the matches, Taiwan’s governing body, the Chinese Taipei Football Association (CTFA), said in a statement.
On Sunday, the team was prevented from boarding a flight to Ulan Bator at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport after the Mongolian government banned Taiwanese from entering the country.
CTFA secretary-general Fang Ching-ren (方靖仁) said at the time that Mongolia, in a bid to prevent the spread of the 2019 novel coronavirus, imposed strict border restrictions, barring all travelers to the country from the “Chinese area,” which it interpreted to include not only China, Hong Kong and Macau, but also Taiwan.
From Sunday to Wednesday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and CTFA communicated with Mongolian authorities through Taiwan’s trade representative office in Ulan Bator to convince them that the Republic of China (Taiwan) is a sovereign nation, not part of China.
The Mongolian government was informed by the CTFA that the coronavirus outbreak occurred in Wuhan, China; that Taiwan has contained any spread of the virus locally; and that the Taipower team would not make any stopovers in China, association officials said.
However, despite the diplomatic assurances, along with the CTFA’s push for the AFC to get involved, Mongolia would not change its stance, and the match cancelations stood.
Taiwan Statebuilding Party Chairman Chen Yi-chi (陳奕齊) said that the match cancelations were likely due to Mongolia being pressured by China to bar the Taiwanese team.
“Their government mistakenly thought ‘Chinese Taipei’ was under China’s jurisdiction,” Chen said.
“The Mongolian government is also working hard to prevent the spread of the ‘Wuhan virus’ in their country, but it is Taiwan’s own use of ‘Chinese Taipei’ that has caused so much confusion in the international community,” Chen said. “It is time for us to discard the outdated and incorrect ‘Chinese Taipei,’ and to start to use ‘Taiwan’ and officially refer to our national squad as ‘Team Taiwan’ on the world stage.”
The government and the nation’s sports teams have belittled themselves by using “ROC” and “Chinese Taipei,” which confuses people from other countries into thinking that they are part of China, Chen said.
“This is the right time to start the change and for our people to be proud of our country as ‘Taiwan,’ and let the world know that we are a separate and sovereign country — that we are not part of China,” Chen said.
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