A close look at 'Chinese Taipei'

The fight over the names of the Olympic committees between Taiwan and China, to almost all pragmatic Western minds, might look farcical, if not ludicrous. What difference does it make, they may ask, if Taiwan's is called the Republic of China Olympic Committee instead of the Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee? Well, there's none. That's the reason why Chiang Ching-kuo, who might feel his ego was hurt, had to go along with the final IOC decision. Had he allowed the committee in Taipei to be called the Taiwan Olympic Committee, the PRC would have agreed. Time was when leaders in Beijing liked to delegate the Republic of China to the provincial status of Taiwan. The coined term which has Chinese before Taipei is a modus vivendi both sides of the Taiwan Strait could accept, like what is known as the consensus of 1992, under which they are agreed that there is but one China, whose connotation, however, can be orally and individually expressed.

In time, Chinese Taipei has been accepted as a universal designation of the Republic of China in world organizations, governmental as well as non-governmental, where representatives of the two sides of the Strait meet. One of them is the Asian Development Bank, of which the Republic of China is a founding member. Its name has been changed to Chinese Taipei, and Taiwan has continued to participate under protest. Another is the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum. Taiwan joined APEC as Chinese Taipei. Although Taiwan joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) as the Special Customs Territories of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu, it is also officially designated as Chinese Taipei. The most recent Taiwan has joined as Chinese Taipei is the World Health Assembly.

The problem of translation arose the moment the translation had to be done. In Taiwan, Chinese Taipei is translated as Zhong-hua Taipei (中華台北). The translation in China is Zhong-guo Taipei (中國台北). In fact, Zhong-hua and Zhong-guo differ little. The Republic of China is an English translation of Zhong-hua min guo (中華民國), and the People's Republic of China that of Zhong-hua ren-min gong-he-guo (中華人民共和國). The English word China is a translation of Zhong-hua in Mandarin. Mao Zedong did not insist on using Zhong-guo (中國) as the official title of the republic he proclaimed in Beijing. But Taipei insists on Zhong-hua Taipei, complaining that it is derogatory or even demeaning if it is translated as Zhong-guo Taipei. Incidentally, no such complaint is possible if Chinese Taipei is translated into Spanish. The Spanish translation is China Taipei for it doesn't have the adjective 'Chinese' in its fellow Romance language of Italian. Should the Spanish term be rendered into Chinese it could be Zhong-guo Taipei in China and Zhong-hua Taipei in Taiwan.

At any rate, however, the opposition Democratic Progressive Party is escalating the dispute over the name of Chinese Taipei. The party was quite pragmatic while it was in power, raising no objection to Taiwan's participation in international activities as Chinese Taipei. After the change of government in May last year, however, the party has never failed to demand that any participation in international activities be forbidden unless in the name of Taiwan, condemning any official attempt to use Chinese Taipei as a sellout of Taiwan.

Opposition party leaders seem to be suffering from a collective paranoia. They have morbidly suspected that all KMT officials from President Ma Ying-jeou on down are conspiring to surrender Taiwan to China on the silver platter.

1|2

PrintEmail

Write a Comment

Terms

Enter your comments - 3000 characters max

Type in image code

Submit

 Receive China Post promos
 Respond to this email