Petition Challenges Chinese Taipei Status Quo

(ATR) What’s in the name Chinese Taipei? It depends on who you ask.

In the Olympic Movement, competing under the name Chinese Taipei is appropriate and not up for debate, those involved told Around the Rings. For others, it is far from resolved. Many even refuse to broach the subject.

Ahead of the 2020 Olympics, a group calling itself "Taiwan Tokyo 2020 movement" met to bring the name dispute back into the spotlight. The group hopes to put pressure on the IOC and the Japanese Olympic Committee to allow athletes who compete under the Chinese Taipei flag to compete under the name "Taiwan".

According to Taipei news reports, a few thousand signatures were collected from both Taiwanese and Japanese supporters last week in Tokyo.

"Taiwan is simply Taiwan, and China is China, an equally important country," Wataru Fujihira, a local retiree, was quoted by NTD when signing the petition. "Anyone…should think it’s absurd that the name ‘Chinese Taipei’ is being used."

The reports say organizers of the petition hope to collect one million signatures, and have support from the Democratic Progressive Party in Taiwan.

To understand the origins of the naming disputes requires a bit of history of the Chinese Civil War and the politics behind IOC decision-making.

After the Chinese Civil War came to an end in 1949, the mainland became the People’s Republic of China. The political entity controlling the Republic of China fled to the island of Taiwan, forming a government. The international community, including the IOC, originally recognized the Republic of China and sports body Chinese National Olympic Committee.

The PRC regards the island as a renegade province, leading to chronic disputes for the IOC to settle between the two Chinas. Although recognized by the IOC in 1954, the Chinese Olympic Committee did not send a team to the summer Olympics until 1984, largely due to the battles over protocol and national recognition.

Taiwanese Olympians were barred completely from the 1976 Montreal Olympics. At the time Canada recognized the PRC as the only legitimate government of China.

Three years later came a landmark IOC Executive Board decision in Nagoya, Japan. Known as "The Nagoya Resolution" the IOC agreed to a new name, the Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee with a flag and anthem. Eventually signed in 1981, the agreement led to the return of both the COC and new Chinese Taipei NOC to the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles in 1984.

The logo and other imagery for the Taiwan based committee approved by the IOC made no reference to the Republic of China as a sovereign entity. Richard Bush, a Senior Fellow and director of the Center for East Asia Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution, told ATR that even the name Chinese Taipei served as a compromise to be amenable to both governments.

"This term was agreed by Beijing and Taipei as a way of referring to Taiwan while avoiding controversy over whether the ROC/Taiwan is a sovereign state or whether Taiwan as a geographic entity belonged to China," Bush said.

"When the term was developed, Beijing probably would have preferred China Taipei, but that would have suggested that Taiwan was a part of the PRC. The word "Chinese" in "Chinese Taipei" is more ambiguous and therefore more acceptable to the Taiwan government at that time."

IOC Executive Board member C.K. Wu is currently the only IOC member in Chinese Taipei. In comments to ATR, Wu demurred on the petition, instead reiterating the primacy of the Nagoya Resolution.

"The document has since become the legal source for Chinese Taipei to participate in the ‘Olympic Games as well as other activities sponsored by the IOC,’" Wu said. "Either party has since been obliged to honor the agreement."

An IOC spokesperson told ATR that "the name, emblem, flag and anthem [for Chinese Taipei] have been agreed upon a long time ago" and the organization "has not been informed of any intention to change this."

Bush estimates that maybe a "quarter to a third" of the general population of Taiwan support the political entity breaking away to form its own country. Any attempt that garnered support to change the CTOC’s name would be met with a "full-court press to block the change" by the government in Beijing. These "Taiwanese Nationalists," Bush estimates are only "a fraction of the public".

"It is they that want the IOC to use the name Taiwan," Bush said. "Many more are pragmatic and think that Chinese Taipei is ‘good enough’ to ensure that Taiwan athletes have the privilege of competing."

ATR attempted to contact numerous athletes competing for Chinese Taipei through Facebook with the goal of hearing their opinions on the petition. No athlete would speak on the record about the situation, and most simply read the messages and never responded.

One athlete, through a manager, said that answering the questions would be "too difficult" but "hoped [the] story will be very successful".

The manager said that the subject of the Chinese Taipei name was "very hard to talk about" for athletes since "it's related to politics."

For the Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee the matter is already closed. There is an agreed upon name, and that is the name that will stay.

"No athletes have approached us," a CTOC spokesperson said. "We will not be responding to presumptions."

Getting the name right is important in the sensitive realm of diplomacy.

The CTOC spokesperson instructed ATR on the correct Chinese spelling of the Olympic committee name after Google Translate produced an error.

"We appreciate your kind attention to this important matter," the spokesperson said.

Written by Aaron Bauer

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