Using "Chinese Taipei" as an official name for Taiwan's sports teams in international competitions is an agonizing but unaviodable choice, a senior sports council official said yesterday.
National Council on Physical Fitness and Sports Deputy Director Huang Chi-huang (黃啟煌) made the comments yesterday at the legislature's Foreign and Overseas Chinese Affairs Committee in his report on achievements in sports diplomacy.
He said the practice was the result of a 1981 agreement Taiwan signed with the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
Under this agreement, which later became the routine practice for many other international sports organizations, Taiwan must join international sporting events under the name "Chinese Taipei" instead of "Taiwan" or face the cancelation of its qualifications.
Huang said the prospects are slim for Taiwanese teams to use "Taiwan" in their team name, as a recent IOC regulation says that if any member country wants to withdraw from the IOC and re-enter it later under a new name, the country must be a member of the UN.
This would make it impossible for Taiwan to change its team name to include "Taiwan" for the Olympics.
"It is an agonizing fact, but we can't but accept it. Taiwan's government must accept this difficult reality," Huang said.
Asked by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Huang Wei-cher (黃偉哲) whether people could display the national flag to cheer for Taiwanese teams in international games, Huang Chi-huang said if the international sports organizations do not specifically ask Taiwan not to have its people display the flag in a game settings, or if Taiwan is the host country for the competitions, the Taiwanese associations should not bar people carrying national flags from the game settings.
"We don't need to bind our hands. If it's something we deserve, we have to fight for it. For example, during the 2001 World Baseball Cup in Taiwan, there were thousands of national flags flying at the baseball field, and yet nothing happened," he said.
He said the council will consult with local sports associations to convey this idea.
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