Taiwan presented this Wednesday the new cover of its passports, which highlights the designation “Taiwan”, instead of the official name, “Republic of China”, a legacy of the nationalist government that ruled the Chinese continent until 1949
“The new ‘design’ maintains all the elements of the current one, but we have highlighted the English word for ‘Taiwan’ and brought it closer to the word ‘passport’, to stress that it is a Taiwanese passport,” said the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Taiwan, Joseph Wu, at a press conference. The island’s authorities thus intend to underline their separation from the Beijing government, which claims the island’s sovereignty and threatens to use force if the territory declares independence. According to Wu, the changes respond to a parliamentary resolution that defended the prominence of the word “Taiwan” so that it had more presence than the word “China”.
About 170 countries around the world have visa-free programs for Taiwanese citizens, including Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada or member countries of the European Union. China and Taiwan have lived as two autonomous territories since 1949, when the former Chinese nationalist government took refuge on the island, after the defeat in the civil war against the communists.
