A combination of Beijing’s systemic suppression and the self-belittling actions of some Taiwanese has meant that the nation is unable to call itself “Taiwan” outside of its borders, and instead is forced to use clumsy nomenclature such as “Chinese Taipei.”
At the Tokyo Olympic Games, Taiwan’s national team was forced to compete as “Chinese Taipei” and Taiwan’s national flag and anthem were strictly prohibited inside Olympic facilities.
Even more absurd was that many Taiwanese media organizations covering the Games, including the state-funded Central News Agency, used the contrived term “Chinese Taipei” to refer to Taiwan’s athletes.
Aside from Taiwan’s remaining diplomatic allies, all of the nation’s 111 diplomatic missions are, at Beijing’s insistence, forced to call themselves “Taipei representative offices” instead of “Taiwan” or “Republic of China” (ROC) representative offices. An exception is a new office to be opened in Lithuania’s capital, Vilnius, next year.
Outside of the nation’s borders, Taiwanese are deprived of the dignity of using their nation’s name — a bizarre state of affairs that demonstrates Taiwan is no normal nation state.
The international community is extremely pragmatic. Its response to the unfair, irrational and downright odd nomenclature forced onto a sovereign nation of 23 million people has led to all manner of strange linguistic contortions, including the muddleheaded subsumption of democratic Taiwan into autocratic China.
After Washington broke off formal diplomatic relations with Taipei in 1979, the Executive Yuan established the Coordination Council for North American Affairs to handle non-official relations with the US. Taiwan also set up the nebulously named Association of East Asian Relations as a de facto embassy in Tokyo to handle ties with Japan, which had broken off relations with Taiwan five years earlier in 1972.
Today, Taiwan’s de facto embassy in Washington is called the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO) and the nation’s mission in Tokyo is called the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Japan.
Earlier this month the Financial Times reported that US President Joe Biden’s administration is “seriously considering a request from Taiwan to change the name of its mission in the US capital from ‘Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office’ to ‘Taiwan Representative Office.’”
The US does not recognize the ROC, but US domestic law, the Taiwan Relations Act, requires the US to foster a relationship with Taiwan. Allowing TECRO to be renamed the Taiwan Representative Office is therefore right and proper, and would correct the oddity that is its current name.
In a Twitter post on Sept. 11, New York University law professor Jerome Cohen endorsed the name change, writing: “Such a move is warranted and in accord with the very gradual movement in many countries to improve the contemporary system of int’l relations by minimizing the consequences of the Beijing-enforced exclusion of Taiwan from the formal world community.”
Although the Biden administration has not yet approved the mooted name change, the Financial Times report said that US National Security Council Coordinator for the Indo-Pacific Kurt Campbell has backed the change. The report added weight for the name change, given that at the time Taiwanese and US officials were holding discreet “special channel” security and military talks outside Washington.
There is widespread, bipartisan support for Taiwan in Washington, both within the executive branch and in Congress, as well as among ordinary Americans — including for the renaming of Taiwan’s de facto embassy.
In December last year, 78 US representatives wrote a letter to then-US secretary of state Mike Pompeo requesting that he approve the name change of Taiwan’s representative office. In May, a bipartisan group of US representatives proposed the “Taiwan diplomatic review act,” which contained a clause on rectifying the name of Taiwan’s representative office.
Last month, an opinion poll by US think tank the Chicago Council on Global Affairs found that 69 percent of Americans support formal recognition of Taiwan as an independent nation.
If the US were to approve the change to “Taiwan Representative Office” it would be a momentous step, establishing a model for other nations to emulate that could set off a domino effect within the democratic world. In the past few years, there has been no shortage of words and actions on the international stage in favor of calling Taiwan by its real name: Taiwan.
In 2017, Tokyo’s representative office in Taiwan, formerly called the Interchange Association, was renamed the Japan–Taiwan Exchange Association and Taiwan’s Taipei-based Association of East Asian Relations was renamed the Taiwan-Japan Relations Association. By including Taiwan in the name, exchanges between Taipei and Tokyo have been elevated to a more concrete and intimate level.
If Washington were to take the lead in allowing the renaming of Taiwan’s representative office, other nations such as Japan would surely follow suit.
Aside from large nations, smaller countries such as Lithuania are augmenting their relationships with Taiwan. The Lithuanian government has courageously taken on China in a David and Goliath-esque struggle to upgrade its relationship with Taiwan. In doing so, it has not only garnered the support of the European Parliament Committee on Foreign Affairs, but also created a model for other small nations to emulate.
Worried that a chain reaction could spread through Europe, Beijing is piling the pressure on Lithuania, trying to coerce it into backing down.
In addition to rectifying the names of Taiwan’s representative offices around the world, there is also a need to rectify the names of diplomatic missions in Taiwan. The European Parliament and the Canadian parliament have initiated proposals to include the name “Taiwan” in their diplomatic missions. The motions reflect a will to support democratic Taiwan and a determination to stand firm in the face of Chinese coercion.
Having been stripped of its status on the international stage, name rectification would mark a return to normality and realignment with reality. In China, the chief instigator of Taiwan’s woes, the anti-Taiwanese independence atmosphere has already reached fever pitch and is bordering on hysteria.
When Taiwanese TV host Dee Hsu (徐熙娣) — better known as “Little S” — referred to Taiwan’s Olympic team as “national competitors” on social media during the Tokyo Olympics she was labeled as “pro-independence” and smeared online with the one-size-fits-all crime of “humiliating China.” Similar treatment was meted out to Taiwanese actress Janine Chang (張鈞甯) when she referred to “the nation” and “President Tsai Ing-wen [蔡英文].”
Correcting the nation’s name would of course be met with a strong reaction from Beijing: Its state media have already threatened an economic and military response, including a blockade of Taiwan. Most Taiwanese would gladly support name rectification without a second thought rather than cower in a corner due to threats.
The unique nature of Taiwanese society — a country with an identity crisis — means that any attempt at name rectification would be met with resistance by the pro-Chinese fifth column.
Three years ago, a campaign to change the name of the nation’s team at international sporting events, including the Olympics, gained significant momentum. The Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee shut the idea down, claiming it would endanger the right of athletes to attend international sporting events; the government also weighed in, pouring cold water on the idea and snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
Today, Beijing is issuing warnings about the repercussions of Taiwan changing the name of its US diplomatic mission and mocking the US as an “unreliable ally that fails to keep its promises.”
Before name rectification can take place, it would first be necessary to overcome a section of the population that is suffering from a kind of Stockholm syndrome. Following decades of Chinese suppression, some Taiwanese do Beijing’s work for it and speak on its behalf without even being asked to.
Psychological conditions are notoriously difficult to cure: If Taiwan wants to be recognized by its real name, it must first get its house in order and create a normal, unified and homogeneous society.
Translated by Edward Jones
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