But if President Chen makes good on his latest promises, the modest achievements our government has made in securing representation and participation in various international organizations and activities will be placed in serious danger.

Addressing a group of Taiwanese businesspeople based in countries around the world, President Chen recently complained about the “strange names and usages” used by Taiwan in various capacities.

According to the president, Taiwan should stop “hiding” behind the various names used by our delegations to the Olympic Games and the World Trade Organization, as well as the names displayed on the signs outside our de facto embassies and consulates around the world. “Taiwan is a successful model of new democracy around the world and a major center for production of the world’s high-technology products,” he said.

“We should not unduly humble ourselves,” he added, “and should not continue hiding behind such strange names and usages as ‘Chinese Taipei,’ ‘Taipei representative offices,’ ‘individual customs territories’ or ‘health entities,’ being an invisible country.”

To some degree, President Chen’s remarks reflect the state of widespread public frustration about the unusual names and titles we are forced to operate under in the international community.

If international pressure exerted by Beijing were to magically disappear tomorrow, lots of people here would probably not be opposed to President Chen’s proposed plan to use the name “Taiwan” in the international community.

However, Beijing’s claim of sovereignty over Taiwan, combined with ruthless efforts to twist the arms of foreign governments to avoid conferring any sort of official recognition on our government, is not likely to disappear anytime soon.

That is why President Chen’s declared intention of abandoning the “strange” titles we currently operate under is dangerous and even reckless. While trying to change our names and titles may satisfy the desire of President Chen’s pro-independence supporters, such action would surely end up further diminishing the status we currently enjoy in major international organizations and activities.

We agree that the title “Chinese Taipei” is extremely vague and has led to much confusion about what country it represents. However, that title is still far preferable to “Taiwan, Province of China” that Beijing prefers.

Many people here have forgotten how the term “Chinese Taipei” first came to be used by our sports delegations to the Olympic Games in the 1980s.

After mainland China began participating in the International Olympic Committee in the 1970s, one of its conditions for taking part was a demand that athletes from Taiwan be barred from all international sporting activities.

Since the Olympic Games are based around a spirit of universal participation and Taiwan athletes had taken part in the Olympics for many years, other countries proposed reaching a compromise so that teams from both sides of the Taiwan Strait could participate once again. After intense negotiations that included repeated sparring over dashes and commas between a variety of names and titles, the compromise “Chinese Taipei” was finally worked out and our athletes returned to the Olympics in 1984.

If President Chen were to dump “Chinese Taipei” and ask the International Olympic Committee to re-admit us under the name “Taiwan,” Beijing could easily get us kicked out of the IOC and our athletes would be left out of the organization once again.

The same situation would certainly occur if we attempted to change our formal title in the World Trade Organization, the long and cumbersome “Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu.” For obvious reasons of convenience, the WTO prefers to refer to us as “Chinese Taipei” for short.

Like the Olympic title, the “Separate Customs Territory” name was the product of intense negotiations and had a compromise not been reached, we would have been left out of the WTO entirely.

President Chen’s administration would be reckless and even foolish to re-open the difficult and sensitive question of our official title, not least because Beijing has recently attempted to force WTO members to overturn this compromise title in favor of its preferred name.

As for the “Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office” title, this name is already quite an upgrade compared to what used to be hung up on the signs outside of our de facto diplomatic missions in various cities around the United States and other countries.

For example, before President Bill Clinton agreed to let us upgrade the office names, they used to hang up signs displaying the confusing title “Coordination Council for North American Affairs (CCNAA).”

At least we are fortunate that President Chen is fond of making promises that he fails to keep.

Since we risk losing what little status we currently enjoy, let us all hope that President Chen will find something better to do with the time left in his last term of office, which expires in May of next year.

Rather than catalogue the various “strange” names and titles we use in the international community, President Chen would be far better off tending to his official duties running the day-to-day affairs of state.

If President Chen could be as creative in governing the country as he has been in changing names, signs and titles, our international status would grow and we would be in a far better position to pick and choose our names.

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