Pro-independence groups yesterday called on lawmakers to heed mainstream public opinion and promptly review motions to change the cover of Republic of China (ROC) passports and the name of China Airlines (CAL), so that the international community would not confuse Taiwan with China.
Former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) managed to amend the cover of the passport by adding the word “Taiwan,” even though the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was in the minority at the Legislative Yuan at the time, Lee Teng-hui Association for Democracy chairman George Chang (張燦鍙) told a news conference in Taipei.
With the DPP having full control of the government and the legislature, there is no reason for it not to rectify the nation’s name on passports and in the state-run airline, he said.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
The groups are not asking that passports now in use be phased out, but that people be granted a choice between the current one and a new version with “Taiwan” on the cover, without the words “Republic of China” or the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) emblem, he said.
The groups would lobby the legislative caucuses to review motions filed by Taiwan Statebuilding Party Legislator Chen Po-wei (陳柏惟), the New Power Party caucus and the DPP caucus to review the name of the airline and redesign the passport cover during an extraordinary session scheduled to begin on June 29, he said.
“There is not a government in the world that is more obtuse than the Taiwanese government,” which has sent batches of masks overseas to nations hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, but allowed China to steal the spotlight and receive praise for the donations after some foreign media mistook the CAL planes delivering the masks for Chinese aircraft, attorney Jerry Cheng (鄭文龍) said at the news conference.
More nations on public occasions now refer to the nation as “Taiwan,” and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo addressed President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) as “Taiwan’s president” in his letter congratulating Tsai on her second inauguration, Taiwan New Constitution Foundation director Huang Chi-hao (黃啟豪) said.
The nation should seek to capitalize on this trend to rename CAL, he said.
Chen’s changing the name of Chinese Petroleum Corp to CPC Corp, Taiwan, during his time in office is an example that Tsai’s administration could follow, Huang added.
Edwin Yang (楊聰榮), an associate professor at National Taiwan Normal University, said that the American Institute in Taiwan on Friday last week, in releasing the Talent Circulation Alliance white paper, stressed that Taiwan’s future lies in internationalizing itself, but such efforts would be empty talk if it could not even rectify its name.
The national airline does not have to be called “China Airlines” when other names can embody the nation, said Lin Khiam (林謙), a vice president of the National Taiwan University Student Association, citing the examples of Germany’s national airline being called Lufthansa and the United Arab Emirates’ airline being named Emirates.
Asked for a response to the pro-independence groups’ call, DPP caucus director-general Cheng Yun-peng (鄭運鵬) told reporters that the various motions before the legislature, which have passed a first reading, are likely to be reviewed during the upcoming extraordinary session, as a one-month period in which lawmakers are allowed to set them aside has expired.
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