Taiwan, Taipei — What's in a name?

Few in Taiwan are against independence. But independence is impossible, not just in the near future but many decades to come. And all of us know it full well. The only option open to us now is to maintain the status quo, shelving the dispute over one China or two Chinas in the common interests of the Chinese people. Nobody can deny most of the people in the Republic of China are ethnically and culturally Chinese.

There is no point arguing for Taiwan or Taipei for argument's sake. All of us are free to call our country the Republic of China or Taiwan if they so wish. But we cannot force the world to go along with us. They are equally free to call our country Taiwan or Taiwan, a province of China or whatever else their whim dictates. Don't forget the whole Western world called Taiwan Formosa for hundreds of years before Generalissimo Chiang officially banned that name after he moved his Kuomintang government from Nanjing to Taipei at the end of 1949. Remember also Mao Zedong would have washed Taiwan with blood but for the neutralization of the Strait U.S. President Harry S. Truman declared the day after war broke out in Korea in 1950.

There should be no such question as “What's in the name?” for all of us.

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