Any unilateral change to the name of the Taiwanese national team for the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics would only hurt Taiwan and could cost the nation its membership in the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the Chinese Taipei Olympians Association said yesterday.
The association of Taiwanese Olympic medalists and former participants issued an official statement in response to a proposed referendum that would change the name of the national team from “Chinese Taipei” to “Taiwan.”
Olympic Charter Article 30, section 2 states: “The name of a [national Olympic committee] NOC must reflect the territorial extent and tradition of its country and shall be subject to the approval of the IOC Executive Board,” the association said.
“The Constitution states that our official title is the Republic of China and the country’s territory includes Taiwan proper, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu,” the association said. “The title ‘Chinese Taipei’ is the result of an agreement that was reached on March 23, 1981, between Taiwan’s Olympic committee and the IOC in Lausanne [Switzerland], and both the title of the national team and the flag representing the team have been approved and recognized by the IOC ever since.”
Taiwanese athletes have used “Chinese Taipei” to participate in various international competitions and people around the world equated Taiwan with “Chinese Taipei” because of its athletes’ extraordinary achievements, the association said, adding that international media nevertheless report that the athletes are from Taiwan.
“It takes more than 10 years for athletes to train to compete in international competitions. If the IOC-approved name of Taiwan’s national sports team is changed unilaterally, it would only cause trouble and even cost us our membership in the IOC,” the association said.
“Athletes would also lose the opportunity to compete internationally,” it said, adding that “Chinese Taipei” is an imperfect but acceptable option.
Meanwhile, the association granted former Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee (CTOC) chairman Thomas Tsai (蔡辰威) the title of honorary Olympian for successfully managing Taiwan’s national teams at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 2012 London Olympics.
Commenting on the name-change referendum, Tsai said that Taiwan participated in the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome, 1964 Tokyo Olympics, 1968 Mexico City Olympics and 1972 Munich Olympics using “Taiwan,” “Taiwan, ROC” and “Formosa” as its title.
In 1976, the nation was not allowed to compete in the Montreal Olympics and subsequent competitions, he said.
In 1979, the IOC recognized the Chinese Olympic Committee in Beijing and demanded that Taiwan change the title of its team to “Chinese Taipei,” adding that Taiwan could neither use its national flag nor its national anthem at the Games.
Because Taiwan refused to concede to such demands, its IOC membership was suspended and it was not invited to participate in the 1980 Moscow Olympics.
The CTOC later filed a lawsuit against the IOC in a Lausanne district court for unilaterally suspending the nation’s membership, and the court ruled in favor of Taiwan, Tsai said, adding that the ruling forced then-IOC chairman Juan Antonio Samaranch to renegotiate the terms of participation with Taiwan in 1981.
“The IOC recognized Taiwan as a regional member, not a national member,” he said. “Based on the Olympics Charter, to become a national member of the IOC, a country has to be either a UN or an International Committee of the Red Cross and Red Crescent (ICRC) member.”
“Taiwan is neither a UN member nor an ICRC member,” Tsai said. “‘Chinese Taipei’ is not a perfect name, but at least that is the name stated in our agreement with the IOC, which is valid.”
“If we want to change the name of our sports team, either Taiwan needs to join the UN or we need to change the title of our country,” he said, adding that the IOC would also need to approve the national Olympic committee’s new name.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS