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The passport change comes after Taiwanese residents grew tired of being mistaken for Chinese citizens when traveling. The issue has become particularly relevant during the corona pandemic, which Taiwan has managed to combat.
“Since the beginning of the outbreak in Wuhan, our people have been hoping that Taiwan will become more visible and that they will not be mistaken for people from China,” Taiwan Foreign Minister Joseph Wu said when the new passports.
In the new passports Going into effect in January next year, the font for the word Taiwan is larger, while the ROC, which is Taiwan’s official name, is written in small English letters around the country’s emblem.
Taiwan is a democracy that functions as an independent country with its own elections, its own currency, and its own armed forces. It was here that the Nationalists fled in 1949 after the defeat to the Communists in the Chinese Civil War. Since then, the mainland communist regime has consistently argued that Taiwan is part of China and should be incorporated, if necessary, by military invasion.
But Taiwan has grown increasingly distant from its neighbor on the mainland and sought to forge closer ties with the rest of the world. At the same time, the pandemic has highlighted how China is blocking Taiwan from many international organizations, such as the WHO. It is also the People’s Republic of China that has a seat in the UN and only a few countries have diplomatic relations with Taiwan.
Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen has tried to reduce Taiwan’s dependence on China, repeatedly emphasizing that Taiwan is an independent country. The government is also considering changing the name of its largest airline, China Airlines, to avoid confusion with China.
Beijing’s idea that Taiwan should become part of China on the same principle as Hong Kong, a two-system country, Tsai Ing-wen has repeatedly rejected.
But Beijing does not deviate an inch from its line. The new passports called a foreign affairs spokeswoman a “trifle”, not because of the fact that Taiwan is an “indispensable part of China.”
The session is the second time in a short time. when the communist regime rebelled against Taiwan. Earlier this week, it was a visit to Taiwan by Czech President Milos Vystrcil that infuriated. The fact that Taiwan is visited by foreign politicians of such high rank is unusual and does not fall on a good footing in China.
In his speech to the Taiwanese parliament, Milos Vystrcil paraphrased John F. Kennedy’s famous speech in Berlin in 1963, saying “I am Taiwanese.” He has crossed a border and will have to pay a heavy price, said Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
