Taiwan leader wants Olympics to promote Taiwan-China peace

Jul 30, 2008, 11:48 GMT

Taipei - Taiwan President, Ma Ying-jeou, expressed the wish Wednesday that the Beijing Olympics would promote peace between Taiwan and China.

Ma expressed the wish while visiting the Tsoying National Athletes' Training Centre in Kaohsiung, south Taiwan, and presenting an Olympics flag to the Taiwan team.

Ma said he was happy to see that Taiwan and China had solved the dispute over the Taiwan team's name to achieve a win-win situation. China is going all out to host a successful Olympics, Taiwan is willing to do all it can to help make the Games succeed, he said.

'In ancient times, countries engaged in military power competition. Now they compete in physical strength. The power one shows in the sports arena represents national power. So I hope Taiwan athletes can can win medals and Taiwan people can be healthy and strong,' said Ma.

Despite improved Taipei-Beijing ties under Ma, who won the March 22 election on a pro-China platform, Taiwan was annoyed that in the past few months, the Chinese media has called the Taiwan team China-Taipei - instead of Chinese-Taipei.

The name sounds similar to foreigners, but it is sensitive to the Taiwanese because China-Taipei (Zhongguo-Taibei) indicates Taiwan is part of China, while Chinese-Taipei (Zhonghua-Taibei) means Taiwan is part of the Chinese ethnic group.

It was only after Taiwan had protested China's using China-Taipei and threatened to boycott the Beijing Olympics that Beijing told the Chinese press to call the Taiwan team Chinese-Taipei.

China considers Taiwan its breakaway province, but Taiwan, seat of the exiled Republic of China since 1949, regards itself as a sovereign state currently recognized by 23 countries.

Taiwan will dispatch about 80 athletes to Beijing to compete in 15 sports with hopes of winning gold in taekwondo and women's doubles in tennis. Most of the athletes and sports officials will fly to Beijing on August 3.