Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry expressed its disappointment that the organizers of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar changed the island’s nomenclature for the soccer event again, in addition to criticizing China for forcing the decision, the news agency reported. from CNA Island.
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 the matches of the World Cup and which will serve as a visa, the denomination used for the island it is that of “Chinese Taipei”.
This name is the one used publicly by Taiwan in international sports competitions, including those organized by FIFA, since it cannot use its official name, that of the Republic of China, due to pressure from Beijing, since the People’s Republic of China is recognized as global level.
When the app was developed, there was initially no space dedicated to the island, so in the face of Taiwanese protests, the organizers opted to add “Taiwan, province of China” to the options.
This terminology equally angered the Taiwanese government and many of its inhabitants, so the name was again changed to simply “Taiwan”, earning the Qatari hosts praise from Taipei.
However, 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 principle of ‘one China ‘ and its handling of relevant matters 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 has considered Taiwan a rogue province ever since Kuomintang nationalists seized control of the island. they 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.
