Wed, May 30, 2001 page8

• Playing the name game can cause confusion

  • By Paul Lin 林保華
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  During the recent Third Over-seas Chinese Affairs Conference in Taipei, a proposal was made to add the name "Taiwan," in parentheses, to ROC passports. The proposal won support from a large number of Taiwan's overseas representative offices. It was also immediately tagged as "pro-independence" by the pro-unification camp, as expected.

  The problems of "China" are complex indeed -- complicated enough to mystify even the Chinese themselves, let alone foreigners. It is very clear, for example, that both the ROC and the PRC exist at the same time. And both can be called "China" for short. So why should anyone talk about "one China?"

  If there is only one China, why should people from Taiwan need to apply for permits to visit China? Why do Chinese need to apply for visas to visit Taiwan? Hong Kong and Macau are already part of one China, but people from both places still need passes to visit China. Not only that, people from China also need permits to visit Hong Kong and Macau. Is this a really a sign of "one country?"

  Recently, a Hong Kong Chinese who was traveling in China on a visitor pass flew from Beijing on a Japanese airline to Japan, from where he planned to travel on to Canada. When an official of the airline discovered that his Hong Kong Special Administrative Region passport did not carry a departure stamp from immigration in Beijing, he was kicked out. The official probably thought he had caught another Kim Jong-nam (the eldest son of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, who was detained in Japan in early May for trying to enter the country on a forged passport).

  The Hong Kong Chinese man has now filed a lawsuit against the official, accusing him of discrimination against Chinese.

  The national flags, anthems and portraits of leaders from the ROC and the PRC give frequent cause for confusion and embarrassment at international events and in the foreign media. This is especially true in developing countries.

  Sometimes, even China's President Jiang Zemin (江澤民) gets confused. While reading from a script at Cambridge University in October 1999, for example, Jiang misread "Chung hua min tzu" (中華民族, the Chinese people) as "Chung Hua Min Kuo" (中華民國, the ROC).

  Obviously, the terms ROC, PRC and the "Chinese people" can be easily confused. Due to China's attempts to block Taiwan's diplomatic activities in the international community, many countries and their peoples only know about the PRC and not the ROC. When they hear "China," they naturally think it means the PRC. In contrast, they have a very clear impression of "Taiwan." They know it is another country outside the PRC.

  The China confusion has even caused inconvenience outside the realm of high politics. A student union set up by students from Taiwan in a US university, for example, used to have the word "Chinese" in its name. But later, students from China set up a group with a similar name, causing confusion even among the students themselves. Later, the Taiwanese student union adopted a new name with the word Taiwan.

  If Taiwan wants more visibility in the international community, it should continue to use the name and flag of the ROC in order to highlight its 90-year history and its status as a founding member of the UN. But it should also use Taiwan, when neces-sary, in order to distinguish itself from the PRC.

  One is an "academic name" and the other a "popular name," each to be used wherever beneficial. This would be a pragmatic diplomatic move.

  Paul Lin is a political commentator currently based in New York.

  Translated by Francis Huang
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