For an expat who has lived abroad for many years, there is always a heartwarming feeling upon hearing any British media mentioning the word “Taiwan.”
In recent months, the Chinese government has actively been demanding that many international airlines change the geographical title of “Taiwan” to “China,” and even pressured the East Asian Olympic Committee into revoking Taichung’s right to host the East Asian Youth Games, which were due to take place in August next year.
These malicious political acts have been felt by all of us. Sadly, for those of us abroad, the Chinese government has been staging a silent revolution in the UK for years, and more recently targeting the independent British media.
There is ample evidence of this. This year at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon, Taiwanese player Hsieh Su-Wei (謝淑薇) delighted the crowd by knocking Simona Halep, the current women’s world No. 1, out in the third round. The game was hosted on No. 1 Court, one of the largest at Wimbledon, and was watched live by millions on prime time TV on Saturday afternoon.
The BBC commentator excitedly described Hsieh as “the black swan from Chinese Taipei.”
A week later, another Taiwanese player, Tseng Chun-hsin (曾俊欣), beat UK player Jake Draper in front of his home crowd. When Tseng was lifting the trophy, the commentator sourly commented that “it’s time to watch out for this boy from Chinese Taipei.”
Even earlier this year, during the Winter Olympics, British broadcaster ITV only talked about “Chinese Taipei’s” entrance for a few seconds before going to ads, skipping the usual commentary about the team’s background altogether.
Any readers who feel that both the BBC and ITV were simply following international sporting regulations by referring to Taiwan as Chinese Taipei are sadly misinformed. On the contrary, the British media should, as they did a few years ago, have freely addressed our players as Taiwanese.
In 2010, our men’s No. 1 tennis player Lu Yen-hsun (盧彥勳) also shocked many by staging a thriller match in the fourth round against the then-US No. 1 player, Andy Roddick, a US Open champion, and beat him to get into the quarter-finals — a first for any Taiwanese.
The BBC completely ignored the “Chinese Taipei” label on Lu’s name tag and called Lu “the Taiwanese player.”
Back then there was no restriction for Taiwanese spectators to take the national flag into Wimbledon, but now security would kick them out.
Another example was again during the Olympics, back in 2012, when they were hosted by London.
A few weeks before the Games, the Chinese embassy successfully demanded that the Regent Street business organization specifically remove Taiwan’s flag from display. It was not the Chinese Taipei sporting flag approved by the International Olympics Committee, but Regent Street is not a government controlled organization.
This caused a stir among the British press and Londoners.
Later in the opening ceremony, when the Taiwanese team entered and after the commentator read out the “approved” version of their background, BBC commentator Hazel Irvine immediately followed, saying: “Formal name Formosa, is the Portuguese word for beautiful, which I’m sure it is.” She then added: “A country of 23 million people, they prefer to call their island Taiwan.”
As a Taiwanese expat, I make sure I impress upon all those I meet the beauty and the wonderfulness of Taiwan. When the Chinese communists try to pressure us into submission, it is time for us to use people’s diplomacy to sell ourselves to the world.
Chen Chih-chin is a Taiwanese expatriate living in the UK.
Saudi Arabian largesse is flooding Egypt’s cultural scene, but the reception is mixed. Some welcome new “cooperation” between two regional powerhouses, while others fear a hostile takeover by Riyadh. In Cairo, historically the cultural capital of the Arab world, Egyptian Minister of Culture Nevine al-Kilany recently hosted Saudi Arabian General Entertainment Authority chairman Turki al-Sheikh. The deep-pocketed al-Sheikh has emerged as a Medici-like patron for Egypt’s cultural elite, courted by Cairo’s top talent to produce a slew of forthcoming films. A new three-way agreement between al-Sheikh, Kilany and United Media Services — a multi-media conglomerate linked to state intelligence that owns much of
The US and other countries should take concrete steps to confront the threats from Beijing to avoid war, US Representative Mario Diaz-Balart said in an interview with Voice of America on March 13. The US should use “every diplomatic economic tool at our disposal to treat China as what it is... to avoid war,” Diaz-Balart said. Giving an example of what the US could do, he said that it has to be more aggressive in its military sales to Taiwan. Actions by cross-party US lawmakers in the past few years such as meeting with Taiwanese officials in Washington and Taipei, and
The Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan has no official diplomatic allies in the EU. With the exception of the Vatican, it has no official allies in Europe at all. This does not prevent the ROC — Taiwan — from having close relations with EU member states and other European countries. The exact nature of the relationship does bear revisiting, if only to clarify what is a very complicated and sensitive idea, the details of which leave considerable room for misunderstanding, misrepresentation and disagreement. Only this week, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) received members of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations
Denmark’s “one China” policy more and more resembles Beijing’s “one China” principle. At least, this is how things appear. In recent interactions with the Danish state, such as applying for residency permits, a Taiwanese’s nationality would be listed as “China.” That designation occurs for a Taiwanese student coming to Denmark or a Danish citizen arriving in Denmark with, for example, their Taiwanese partner. Details of this were published on Sunday in an article in the Danish daily Berlingske written by Alexander Sjoberg and Tobias Reinwald. The pretext for this new practice is that Denmark does not recognize Taiwan as a state under