More than 70 percent of Taiwanese in a poll have said that the government should remove the nation’s English-language name “Republic of China” from the cover of the nation’s passports and only use “Taiwan” as the nation’s English name so that foreign immigration officials would not mistake Taiwanese travelers for Chinese nationals, a poll showed.
The New Power Party (NPP) released the results of its survey yesterday.
The cover of the nation’s passports bears the name “Republic of China” in English under the nation’s official Chinese name, while “Taiwan” is printed in English under the national emblem.
Photo: Lu Yi-hsuan, Taipei Times
However, 74.3 percent of respondents said that the passport’s cover should use just “Taiwan” as the English title, as the nation and Taiwanese have often been negatively associated with China amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The change would avoid Taiwanese being confused with Chinese, they said.
According to the poll, 51.2 percent said they were very supportive of the suggestion, 23.1 percent said they supported it, 10.8 percent said they did not support it and 6.4 percent said they absolutely did not support it, while 8.5 percent did not express any opinion.
“People have suggested using stickers or passport holders to distinguish the Taiwanese passport from the Chinese passport. However, stickers might cause confusion. We suggest that the passport cover be redesigned,” NPP Chairman Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明) said.
The party would ask people to submit their ideas for a new passport cover design before the summer vacation, Hsu said, adding that it would work with experts to create samples for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to consider.
The survey, conducted on Monday and Tuesday last week, collected 1,085 valid questionnaires and has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
The results were weighted based on gender, age and education, the party said.
CHAOS: Iranians took to the streets playing celebratory music after reports of Khamenei’s death on Saturday, while mourners also gathered in Tehran yesterday Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in a major attack on Iran launched by Israel and the US, throwing the future of the Islamic republic into doubt and raising the risk of regional instability. Iranian state television and the state-run IRNA news agency announced the 86-year-old’s death early yesterday. US President Donald Trump said it gave Iranians their “greatest chance” to “take back” their country. The announcements came after a joint US and Israeli aerial bombardment that targeted Iranian military and governmental sites. Trump said the “heavy and pinpoint bombing” would continue through the week or as long
An Emirates flight from Dubai arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport yesterday afternoon, the first service of the airline since the US and Israel launched strikes against Iran on Saturday. Flight EK366 took off from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) at 3:51am yesterday and landed at 4:02pm before taxiing to the airport’s D6 gate at Terminal 2 at 4:08pm, data from the airport and FlightAware, a global flight tracking site, showed. Of the 501 passengers on the flight, 275 were Taiwanese, including 96 group tour travelers, the data showed. Tourism Administration Deputy Director-General Huang He-ting (黃荷婷) greeted Taiwanese passengers at the airport and
TRUST: The KMT said it respected the US’ timing and considerations, and hoped it would continue to honor its commitments to helping Taiwan bolster its defenses and deterrence US President Donald Trump is delaying a multibillion-dollar arms sale to Taiwan to ensure his visit to Beijing is successful, a New York Times report said. The weapons sales package has stalled in the US Department of State, the report said, citing US officials it did not identify. The White House has told agencies not to push forward ahead of Trump’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), it said. The two last month held a phone call to discuss trade and geopolitical flashpoints ahead of the summit. Xi raised the Taiwan issue and urged the US to handle arms sales to
State-run CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) yesterday said that it had confirmed on Saturday night with its liquefied natural gas (LNG) and crude oil suppliers that shipments are proceeding as scheduled and that domestic supplies remain unaffected. The CPC yesterday announced the gasoline and diesel prices will rise by NT$0.2 and NT$0.4 per liter, respectively, starting Monday, citing Middle East tensions and blizzards in the eastern United States. CPC also iterated it has been reducing the proportion of crude oil imports from the Middle East and diversifying its supply sources in the past few years in response to geopolitical risks, expanding
RSS