Advocacy groups have called for the national team to compete under the name “Taiwan” at the Tokyo Olympics, while former Olympian Chi Cheng (紀政) has launched another referendum petition on the issue.
Taiwanese athletes have performed outstandingly at the Olympics and have raised the nation’s profile on the world stage, Northern Taiwan Society chairman Lee Chuan-hsin (李川信) said on Friday.
“Many foreign news agencies, including Japan’s NHK, have called our delegation ‘Taiwan’ instead of ‘Chinese Taipei.’ Therefore our own people and politicians should also speak of ‘Team Taiwan’ and Taiwanese athletes,” he said.
Photo: CNA
“However, in Taiwan, most of the time the Taiwanese team is still referred to as Team Zhonghua (中華, Chinese). We see the medal-winning athletes returning home and holding media briefings at the airport without any wording, symbols or logos to represent Taiwan,” he added.
The advocates released a joint statement, expressing their gratitude to the international community for supporting the nation’s athletes, but added that “it shows the need to avoid a mix-up, as some have mistaken Taiwanese athletes as coming from China.”
“Therefore we are organizing the ‘Call Us Team Taiwan, Let’s Go Taiwan’ drive, and we urge people to join us,” the statement said.
The drive urges people to produce their own “Call Us Team Taiwan” posters, sign boards and adverts to show the world they feel proud to support Taiwanese athletes.
The groups also called on Taiwanese politicians and public figures to support “Team Taiwan,” and not to refer to it as “Chinese Taipei” anymore.
Among the groups promoting the drive are the Taiwan Society, the Asia-Pacific Liberal Women Association and the Taiwan Association of University Professors, as well overseas organizations, including the All Japan Taiwanese Union, the Friends of Taiwan Association Japan, the World Federation of Taiwanese Associations and the Taiwanese Association of America.
Meanwhile, Chi has this week announced that she would launch another referendum campaign next year to rectify the national team’s name by changing it to “Team Taiwan,” adding that she aims to have the proposed referendum ready for the 2024 Paris Olympics.
“Taiwanese do not want the athletes representing their nation to be called ‘Chinese Taipei’ when they are competing or walking to the podium to receive an Olympic medal,” said Chi, who competed in three Olympic Games: Rome in 1960, Tokyo in 1964 and Mexico in 1968.
Chi was among the leading advocates of a referendum in 2018 that called for changing the national team’s name to “Team Taiwan” for the Tokyo Olympics.
At the time, the Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee asked people to vote “no,” saying that the nation’s athletes cannot go abroad to compete under the name “Taiwan” and it would ruin their careers.
The 2018 referendum asked: “Do you agree that the nation should apply under the name of ‘Taiwan’ for all international sports events, including the 2020 Tokyo Olympics?”
It garnered 5,774,556 “no” votes (52.3 percent) and 4,763,086 “yes” votes (43.1 percent).
US President Donald Trump yesterday announced sweeping "reciprocal tariffs" on US trading partners, including a 32 percent tax on goods from Taiwan that is set to take effect on Wednesday. At a Rose Garden event, Trump declared a 10 percent baseline tax on imports from all countries, with the White House saying it would take effect on Saturday. Countries with larger trade surpluses with the US would face higher duties beginning on Wednesday, including Taiwan (32 percent), China (34 percent), Japan (24 percent), South Korea (25 percent), Vietnam (46 percent) and Thailand (36 percent). Canada and Mexico, the two largest US trading
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary