Taiwan protests its designation as “Chinese Taipei” for Qatar 2022

Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed its disappointment the fact that the organizers of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar changed again the nomenclature of the island for the football eventas well as criticizing China for forcing the decision, the island news agency CNA reported.

The Taiwanese Foreign Ministry considers it “extremely regrettable” that in the drop-down menu of the application to request the “Hayya”, a card necessary for spectators to attend matches of the World Cup event and that will serve as a visa, the denomination used for the island is that of “Chinese Taipei”.

This name is the one used publicly by Taiwan in international sports competitions, including those organized by FIFA, since cannot use its official name, that of the Republic of China, due to pressure from Beijing, as the People’s Republic of China is recognized globally.

When the application was developed, at first there was no space dedicated to the island, so, in the face of Taiwanese protests, lhe organizers chose to add “Taiwan, province of China” to the options.

This terminology also angered the Government of Taiwan and many of its inhabitants, so again the name was changed to simply “Taiwan”earning the Qatari hosts praise from Taipei.

Nevertheless, yesterday, the name changed again to the aforementioned “Chinese Taipei”, considered by Wang Wenbin, one of the spokesmen for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, as a sign of “adherence to the ‘one China’ principle and its handling of relevant issues in accordance with the usual practices of international sporting events.”

Like most countries in the world, Qatar has no official diplomatic ties with Taiwan and instead recognizes the People’s Republic of China, which claims sovereignty over the island and considers Taiwan a rebellious province since the Kuomintang nationalists withdrew there in 1949 after losing the civil war against the communists.

Taiwan have never played in the World Cup finals and did not advance past the second round of Asian qualifying for the 2022 tournament last year after losing all eight of their matches.

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