Risking Beijing’s wrath, Taiwan to vote on removing ‘China’ from name of its 2020 Olympic team

Taiwanese are to vote this month over whether the self-ruled island should compete in the next Summer Olympics under the name “Taiwan,” in a highly controversial referendum that would not only provoke Beijing but also put the island’s government in a political dilemma if passed.

The referendum asks whether Taiwan should compete in the 2020 Games in Tokyo and other international sporting events under that name, rather than “Chinese Taipei” – a title that has been used since 1981.

The referendum is among 10 such votes being held alongside the island’s local government elections on November 24, but is the only one so far condemned by Beijing as a prelude of the island’s attempt to declare independence and change the cross-strait status quo – a move the mainland has said would lead to its attack.

The mainland has considered Taiwan a breakaway province since the end of a civil war that saw the defeated Nationalist troops fleeing to the island in 1949 and setting up an interim government. It took over from the Nationalists as the sole representative of China after the United Nations ousted Taipei to admit Beijing in 1971.

Since then, Beijing has disputed the island’s use of its official Republic of China title in international events and succeeded in making the International Olympic Committee alter the island’s ROC team name to “Chinese Taipei” after the Lausanne agreement in Switzerland in 1981.

“We want to change the so-called Olympic model that has set restriction on our attending international sporting events for a long time,” said Yoshi Liu, spokesman of Team Taiwan Campaign for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, referring to what his group views as unfair treatment by the IOC in requiring the island to take part in global sporting events as “Chinese Taipei” instead of other names like Republic of China or Taiwan.