Beijing and Chinese state media have been attempting to downgrade Taiwan’s national status during the Tokyo Olympic Games by using the term “China Taipei” (中國台北), a report released yesterday by the Information Operations Research Group (IORG) showed.
Taiwan regularly competes as “Chinese Taipei” at international sporting events based on a 1981 agreement to satisfy objections from Beijing and the then-ruling Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government.
IORG found that Chinese government agencies referred to Taiwan’s Olympic delegation as “China Taipei” or “China Taiwan” (中國台灣) in their reports and online messages.
IORG said that it based its analysis on public communications found on Chinese social media giant Sina Weibo.
On the Sina Weibo account of Xinhua news agency, official accounts of government agencies and state media outlets with more than 100,000 followers, “China Taipei” was used 83.39 percent of the time when referring to Taiwan’s Olympic athletes and teams, it said, with similar terms used other times.
“This reflects the success of the Chinese government’s policy, which has numerous restrictions to control language use and terminology on social media, and has a strong influence on Sina Weibo users,” the report said.
Since the start of the Games on July 23 through Sunday last week, there have been 1,607 messages using “China Taipei,” “China Taiwan” or “Chinese Taipei” (中華台北) from 835 official Sina Weibo accounts of Chinese government agencies and media, the report showed.
“China Taipei” was the most common term, used in 1,340 messages; “China Taiwan” appeared in 209 postings; and “Chinese Taipei” was used in 95 messages.
The report said that China deliberately encouraged the use of the terms to refer to Taiwan’s Olympic delegation to indicate that Taipei or Taiwan was under the jurisdiction of the Chinese government.
Additional reporting by CNA
‘LONE WOLF’: The suspect was difficult to locate, as he did not use a cellphone, did not contact family and often lived in abandoned sites or parks, police said Taipei police on Thursday morning arrested a man accused of numerous burglaries and at least 14 incidents of sexual assault spanning more than 20 years, in what might be the nation’s most notorious crime spree in recent years. Sixty-year-old Tu Ming-lang (涂明朗) — who was yesterday placed in judicial detention, after a judge determined he was a flight risk without a fixed address — faces multiple charges of sexual assault and burglary, police said. A task force comprised of various law enforcement agencies arrested Tu as part of an investigation into an April 28 burglary in Daan District (大安), in which a
Ninth graders were asked to define “trolling” on this year’s standardized exam, reflecting efforts to make the test better reflect real-life situations. Adjustments to this year’s Comprehensive Assessment Program for Junior High School Students were revealed on Sunday, after the last cohort of students completed the test over the weekend. The Ministry of Education solicited feedback about the test from teachers, who approved of the new question in the English portion. Not only was question No. 20 “very much in line with real-life situations,” but it also used a new style in which students were asked to ascertain the correct dictionary definition based
Taiwan is on alert for monkeypox, a rare viral disease that has caused 87 infections in 11 countries over the past three weeks, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Saturday. The WHO on Friday convened an emergency session to discuss a sudden outbreak of monkeypox in North America and Europe. Since the beginning of this month, 87 confirmed cases and 28 possible cases have been identified in 11 countries. The countries with the highest case counts are England with 29 cases, and Portugal and Spain with 23 each. Monkeypox is a viral zoonotic disease occurring primarily in the tropical rainforest areas
Three human skeletons and artifacts believed to be about 400 years old were unearthed by construction workers at National Ilan University in Yilan County, the university said yesterday. The discoveries were made on May 10 as workers were digging to expand the College of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science’s facilities, the university said in a statement. The skeletons were found at three sites, along with glass beads, copper bells and rings, discs and a fish-shaped metal knot, it said. The find is likely connected to the “Old Baili Village” (擺厘舊社, Bai Li Jiu She), an as-yet-undiscovered Kavalan settlement that has been mentioned in
RSS