The name changes now coming into effect in Taiwan reflect an increasing approval of "Taiwan identity" rather than "Taiwan independence," despite the suggestions made in the disapproving rhetoric of the US, political analysts have said.
Last week, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) pledged to change the names of state-owned enterprises, the nation's embassies and overseas representative offices and other laws and regulations.
As a result, Chunghwa Post Co (
After the pan-blue camp voiced its opposition to the name changes, on Saturday US Department of State spokesman Sean McCormack said: "We do not support administrative steps by the Taiwan authorities that would appear to change Taiwan's status unilaterally or move toward independence. The United States does not, for instance, support changes in terminology for entities administered by the Taiwan authorities."
US comments
The US comments on changing the names reflected remarks made by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (
But political analysts said Ma overreacted and over-interpreted the name change issue.
"The US' reaction might be a little bit disturbing to the name-change bid but it did not oppose it directly because it does not violate President Chen's guarantees in his 2000 inaugural address," said Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政), the chairman of Soochow University's political science department.
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and Chen's administration have prepared for the name changes for a long period of time and did not suddenly bring the issue up, Lo said.
"You will find the name-change campaign is actually linked with other issues of transitional justice and it does not necessarily relate to the concept of `Taiwan independence,'" Lo said.
"Taiwan identity" and "Taiwan independence" are two different matters, Lo said.
`recognition'
"For the people of Taiwan, pursing the recognition of `Taiwan identity' has been brought about by Taiwan's democratic development and the name change issue is emerging in this circumstance," he said.
Polls conducted by the government and by outside pollsters over the past decade show that a steadily increasing number of people recognize themselves as "Taiwanese" instead of "Chinese."
"I do not think the US can deny the increase of `Taiwan identity' because it is upheld by public opinion," Lo said. "The concept of independence is political, but the concept of having a clear identity is a natural process of democracy."
With the rise of "Taiwan identity," changing the names is an irresistible trend and will not go backwards, he said.
Bilateral negotiations and communication will be required to change the names of the nation's overseas embassies and representative offices, and the government will not seek to make immediate, unilateral changes.
The signs in Taiwan's embassies now display the word "Taiwan" in parenthesis under "Republic of China," Taiwan's official national title.
Hsu Yung-ming (
"I think Ma's comment was only aimed at causing panic and confrontation while ignoring the trend of Taiwan's public opinion," Hsu said.
Liya Chu (朱如茵), whose parents are New York-based Taiwanese restaurateurs, has been crowned the champion of US television cooking competition MasterChef Junior, after wowing the judges, including celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay, with a feast of fusion cuisine. In the finale of the show’s eighth season, broadcast on Thursday, Chu walked away with US$100,000 after serving a spread of spiced duck breast with scallion pancakes and miso eggplant, followed by coconut pandan panna cotta with a passion fruit coulis and sesame tuille. Chu, who was 10 years old at the time of filming three years ago, faced off against then-11-year-old Grayson Price from
A university student has gained the spotlight for an interactive map he designed detailing all of China’s military bases and installations throughout the Indo-Pacific region. Soochow University music student Joseph Wen (溫約瑟), who calls himself an amateur military enthusiast, said he created the map to “help people better understand the cross-strait situation.” Wen originally posted the map online on June 14 last year, but it gained greater attention after he mentioned it during an appearance on a China Television talk show. On the show, Wen said he had gathered information on the locations from publicly available Web sites, as
RISK FACTORS: ‘We hope people can cooperate and endure it ... it is possibly the very important last mile,’ Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung said Taiwan’s COVID-19 restrictions and mask regulations are to remain the same next month, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday. The center reported 42,112 new local COVID-19 cases and 85 deaths, saying that the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients has dropped to a new low this month. Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the CECC, said that the center is keeping COVID-19 restrictions and mask regulations the same due to the local virus situation, and an increase in the number of imported cases of the new Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 of SARS-CoV-2, among other risk factors. Easing
GLOBAL STRATEGY: Indo-Pacific alliances need reinforcement to prevent Chinese occupation of Taiwan, which would threaten Japan, Hawaii and Australia, Pompeo said The US should officially recognize Taiwan as a free, independent nation and establish official diplomatic ties, former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo told an event at the Hudson Institute in Washington on Friday. Every US president since Harry Truman has considered Taiwan’s existence to be of utmost importance to US national security, Pompeo said. Taiwan is a principal US partner in technology and economic matters, and if China were to capture Taiwan’s semiconductor supply chain, it would severely hamper the US economy, Pompeo said. Should China occupy Taiwan, it would severely weaken US influence in the Indo-Pacific region and its surrounding areas,
RSS