Organizers of what has become an annual demonstration in support of changing the nation's name to "Taiwan" envision this year's rally as a massive gathering with a carnival atmosphere that will draw up to 2 million people.
Organizers said yesterday that a name-change rally is planned for Nov. 27, to coincide with the pan-green camp's campaign for the year-end legislative elections.
PHOTO: CHEN TSE-MING, TAIPEI TIMES
The Alliance to Campaign for Rectifying the Name of Taiwan (五一一台灣正名運動聯盟) is calling the rally "Lighting up Formosa, Discovering a New Country" (照亮美麗島,
Peter Wang (
The alliance last year staged a rally in front of the Presidential Office to demand the change of the country's name from "the Republic of China" (ROC) to "Taiwan." The rally drew nearly 150,000 people and was led by former president Lee Teng-hui (
Wang said that the alliance will present its proposals for organizing the nationwide rally to Lee on Monday.
Lee is involved in steering private efforts to promote a Taiwanese national identity -- including efforts to create a new constitution and to campaign for changing the nation's name.
The event will follow the model of the 228 Hand-in-Hand Rally, which saw 2 million people around the country form a 500km human chain along the west coast. The rally was intended to protest Chinese ballistic missiles that are aimed at Taiwan.
"The 228 Hand-in-Hand Rally is a wonderful precedent for organizing political rallies that have a harmonious and carnival-like atmosphere. It also transcended ethnic boundaries because Mainlanders and Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese) both supported the cause of identifying with Taiwan. Based on this precedent, we are confident of being able to turn out 2 million people to support changing the nation's name," Wang said.
The name-change campaign has not stopped at the name of the nation: The alliance, which has promoted changing the names of government agencies, companies and private institutions domestically and abroad, yesterday lodged a protest against the Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission's recent decision not to include "Taiwan" in its proposed new name for its overseas compatriots service center.
The commission proposed changing the name of the Chinese Culture Center of the Taipei Economic and Culture Office to "TECO Overseas Service Center."
"TECO" refers to the Taipei Economic and Culture Office. The name is commonly used for the nation's governmental institutions overseas. Taiwan's de facto embassy in the US is the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO).
The proposal is under review by the Cabinet.
Wang yesterday blasted the proposed new name, saying the acronym "TECO" fails to indicate that the agency is Taiwanese.
The alliance has urged the commission to change the institution's name to "Taiwanese Economic and Culture Office."
"No one trying to find the overseas service center would have any idea what TECO is. The commissions's primary task is to provide services to overseas Taiwanese. It doesn't just serve Taipei residents. `TECO' downgrades our national status," Wang said.
In response to the group's objections, commission Chairwoman Chang Fu-mei (
"We decided to drop `Chinese' and replace it with `TECO' because we don't want people to get confused and think that we are an organization run by the Beijing government. If `TECO' is not clear enough, we could make supplementary changes, such as adding `Taiwan' in brackets, or spell out the full name of `TECO' to give a clearer indication of what the agency represents," Chang said.
Chang said that the commissions's operations abroad are governmental and that any name change is subject to regulations set up by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the US government.
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