Independence advocates yesterday announced the launch of a signature drive demanding that Academia Sinica change its name.
The initiative is supported by senior presidential adviser Yao Chia-wen (姚嘉文), Taiwan Nation Alliance Convener Wu Shu-min (吳樹民) and more than 30 groups. They expect that it would gather the targeted number of signatures next week.
Yao, Wu and others on June 20 paid Academia Sinica president James Liao (廖俊智) a visit, urging him to support their cause, they said.
Photo: Tien Yu-hua, Taipei Times
The name Academia Sinica, meaning “Chinese Academy” in Latin, might cause people in the international scientific community to mistakenly believe the institution is based in China, Yao said.
They might think that research conducted by Taiwanese academics was done by Chinese, Yao said.
Liao said that few people are aware that “Sinica” means “Chinese,” including his daughter, a student at Yale University.
However, he said he would forward the request to an institutional affairs meeting at Academia Sinica.
Yao said Liao’s reaction was “lukewarm” and he seemed to consider the request “troublesome.”
“Sinica” should be replaced by “Taiwan” or “Formosa,” he added.
Yao said he and other supporters of a name change would visit the Legislative Yuan, which is due to review Academia Sinica’s research budget in the next session.
He hopes that the institution would agree to change its name during that session.
Academia Sinica said that it established a task force in October last year after legislators had inquired about a name change and proposed four possible options.
The first was to keep the name; the second was to add “Taiwan” to the name; the third was to change the name to “Central Research Academy,” a direct translation of the institute’s name in Chinese; and the fourth was to change the name to “Taiwan Academy of Sciences” or “Academy of Sciences Taiwan.”
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