Cup of Cha
This is China

During the Olympics “Chinese Taipei” will be represented by a group of athletes put in a terribly awkward position. On the one hand, they represent Taiwan, while on the other they most decidedly do not represent the “Republic of China,” which as everyone not in the Bush administration knows, does not exist. This begs the question: what flag will they fly at the Opening Ceremony, and in the case that the team wins any medals.

I’m glad you asked that! As it turns out, Chinese Taipei has a special flag during the Olympics. It represents neither Taiwan nor Mainland China, but rather Imaginary Land. What a fantastic compromise! How did all of this come about? Again, glad you asked!

Here is what the Chinese Olympic Committee, which sadly identifies itself as “COC” and has the word “Chinese” misspelled at the very top of their website, has to say on Taiwan’s Olympic participation:

The COC representatives reaffirmed the basic principle at the meeting: There is only one China in the world, and that is the People’s Republic of China. Taiwan is part of Chinese territory. Based on this principle, the IOC should recognize only one NOC for China, and that is the Chinese Olympic Committee with its headquarters in Beijing and representing the amateur athletes of the whole country.

However, in consideration of the actual situation in Taiwan and in order that the athletes there would have the opportunity to take part in international competitions, the COC agreed that the sports organization in Taiwan might stay in the IOC, on condition that it would not attach “Republic of China” to its name, nor use the appellation of “Taiwan” independently. Nor would it be allowed to use its “national flag” and “national anthem” and anything symbolic of the “Republic of China.” The COC’s approach was considered realistic and acceptable to many IOC members.

Okay, you are saying, they don’t get their own flag, but how did they end of with this concoction? Here is the partial explanation from the World Games website (they also cite “COC”!):

When athletes from Taiwan carried their flag onto the stage for the opening ceremony of the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece, they marched with other countries that began with the letter ‘T.’ Officially, they did not represent Taiwan, they represented ‘Chinese Taipei.’

The athletes did not carry the flag of the Republic of China (ROC), which had been used in Olympic Games up until the 1970s, but rather the official Chinese Taipei Olympic flag sanctioned by the International Olympic Committee. This flag is white with a blue and red outline of a five-pedaled flower, wrapped around a small white sun enclosed in a blue background–the symbol found on the ROC flag–with the five Olympic rings below.

China is not the only countrie(s) to have embraced creative methods when trying to project a national identity to the world. You may remember North and South Korean athletes walked together in the Sydney opening ceremony, and then promptly had 639 round of Six-Party Talks. (Shouldn’t they be five parties? I mean there’s only one Korea, right?)

These examples have recently re-surfaced as other countries are beginning to examine the role fiction and bogus flags can play in the world’s premier sporting event. The movement toward wishful thinking among the world’s leaders has been dubbed as “The Olympic Spirit.”

Only this year Germany petitioned the IOC to have Great Britain, France and Holland participate in the Games under the German red, black and yellow. Similarly, Spain is hopeful that South America will participate under the name “Western Spanish Territories.”

Where does America weigh in on this one? One World, One Flag.

Tags: satire, taiwan
Follow Comments via RSS Feed
You can leave a response or trackback from your site.