For Taiwan’s Olympics team, everything is in a name

By HUIZHONG WU
Associated Press

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — For Taiwan, every appearance on the global stage is fraught with politics — and even more so when that stage is China. The four Taiwanese athletes competing in Beijing for the Winter Olympics, can’t use the name Taiwan. Instead, they compete under Chinese Taipei. Taiwan is an island of 24 million people off China’s east coast. It functions as a country with its own government and military. But China claims Taiwan as its territory, and only 14 countries recognize Taiwan as a nation. A 1981 agreement with the International Olympics Committee created the name of Chinese Taipei and allowed athletes to compete under a newly designed white flag with a flower outline around a sun and the Olympic rings in the middle.