The Legislative Yuan yesterday resolved to update the nation’s passport to highlight the Chinese and English for “Taiwan,” and to devise “feasible” ways to rename state-run China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 中華航空) to differentiate it from its Chinese counterpart, Air China.
Motions tendered by Taiwan Statebuilding Party Legislator Chen Po-wei (陳柏惟) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus on the passport cover, and by the DPP and New Power Party caucuses on the name of the airline were voted on yesterday.
The proposals submitted by the DPP caucus won both votes.
Photo: Wu Su-wei, Taipei Times
The first resolution mandates that the English and Chinese for “Taiwan” should be highlighted on the passport to prevent Taiwanese from being confused with Chinese, to uphold their dignity and ensure their safe passage amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which originated in China.
The second resolution says that the international community has often confused China Airlines with Air China and to avoid that, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications should devise ways to set China Airlines planes apart from those of Air China.
China Airlines in the short term should add Taiwanese motifs to the fuselages of its aircraft so that the nation’s air rights would not have to be renegotiated, it says.
The ministry in the long term should devise feasible ways to change the English-language name of China Airlines, it says.
The motions were drafted after reports of Asians being discriminated against overseas due to the COVID-19 pandemic and batches of masks wrapped in banners reading “China Airlines” misleading recipients into thinking that they were donated by China.
The ministry said that it has instructed the China Aviation Development Foundation (中華航空事業發展基金會) — China Airlines’ largest shareholder — to form a consultancy team to discuss the legislature’s resolution.
China Airlines said that it had no comment on the resolution.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Joanne Ou (歐江安) said in a statement that the foreign ministry would collect feedback on how the nation’s passport should be redesigned.
Additional reporting by Shelley Shan and Lin Chia-nan
Two US House of Representatives committees yesterday condemned China’s attempt to orchestrate a crash involving Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim’s (蕭美琴) car when she visited the Czech Republic last year as vice president-elect. Czech local media in March last year reported that a Chinese diplomat had run a red light while following Hsiao’s car from the airport, and Czech intelligence last week told local media that Chinese diplomats and agents had also planned to stage a demonstrative car collision. Hsiao on Saturday shared a Reuters news report on the incident through her account on social media platform X and wrote: “I
SHIFT PRIORITIES: The US should first help Taiwan respond to actions China is already taking, instead of focusing too heavily on deterring a large-scale invasion, an expert said US Air Force leaders on Thursday voiced concerns about the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) missile capabilities and its development of a “kill web,” and said that the US Department of Defense’s budget request for next year prioritizes bolstering defenses in the Indo-Pacific region due to the increasing threat posed by China. US experts said that a full-scale Chinese invasion of Taiwan is risky and unlikely, with Beijing more likely to pursue coercive tactics such as political warfare or blockades to achieve its goals. Senior air force and US Space Force leaders, including US Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink and
‘BUILDING PARTNERSHIPS’: The US military’s aim is to continue to make any potential Chinese invasion more difficult than it already is, US General Ronald Clark said The likelihood of China invading Taiwan without contest is “very, very small” because the Taiwan Strait is under constant surveillance by multiple countries, a US general has said. General Ronald Clark, commanding officer of US Army Pacific (USARPAC), the US Army’s largest service component command, made the remarks during a dialogue hosted on Friday by Washington-based think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Asked by the event host what the Chinese military has learned from its US counterpart over the years, Clark said that the first lesson is that the skill and will of US service members are “unmatched.” The second
Czech officials have confirmed that Chinese agents surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March 2024 and planned a collision with her car as part of an “unprecedented” provocation by Beijing in Europe. Czech Military Intelligence learned that their Chinese counterparts attempted to create conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, which “did not go beyond the preparation stage,” agency director Petr Bartovsky told Czech Radio in a report yesterday. In addition, a Chinese diplomat ran a red light to maintain surveillance of the Taiwanese
RSS