New Constitution is needed

At the Democratic Progressive Party's 17th anniversary celebrations on Sunday, party chairman and President Chen Shui-bian announced that he will push for a new Constitution in 2006. The opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and People First Party (PFP) immediately accused Chen of abandoning the promises he made in his presidential inauguration speech in 2000 -- that he would not declare independence, change the country's name or promote a referendum to change the status quo as long as China has no intent of using military force against Taiwan. The opposition has accused Chen of setting a timetable for independence. Chen's announcement has turned next year's presidential election into a showdown between independence and unification.

In terms of constitutional history, the Constitution of the Republic of China is a special example. Legally, it has been in effect for more than half a century -- it was promulgated on Jan. 1, 1947. Strictly speaking, however, it has never really been put into effect. Written for 500 million people (China's population at the time), it has long been foisted upon Taiwan's population of 23 million. This absurd incompatibility with reality is recognized by the public, but whether to amend the Constitution or simply write a new one has been a source of dispute between political parties.

For a long time, the DPP has had internal disagreements over these two approaches. There has always been a powerful force within the party calling for a new Constitution. Former party chairmen Huang Erh-hsuan and Lin Yi-hsiung as well as former party legislator Cheng Pao-ching all presented draft constitutions.

In 1997, then party chairman Hsu Hsin-liang adopted a different approach when he agreed to work with then president and KMT chairman Lee Teng-hui to amend the Constitution. The amendments led to the abolishment of the National Assembly and the provincial government as well as the establishment of a semi-presidential system. The Constitution was amended six times under Lee's government.

Even though the amendments resolved some of the problems facing democratization, they could not resolve the fundamental problem -- the Constitution simply does not fit Taiwan.

Chen's announcement on Sunday will revive calls within the DPP for a new Constitution. Chen has political considerations in making the proposal. First of all, Chen can absorb the pro-independence forces and set a political goal over and above Lee's and the Taiwan Solidarity Union's (TSU) platform calling for a name change. He can then regain a leadership position of pro-independence forces. Next, he can deepen the theme of next year's presidential campaign -- a showdown between "one China" and "one country on each side." Third, he can provoke China into making some inappropriate response -- perhaps a repeat of the 1996 missile crisis or former premier Zhu Rongji's threats on the eve of the 2000 election.

Of course, Chen is also taking a major risk by proposing a new Constitution. By accusing Chen of pushing for independence, the opposition camp may arouse fears of a crisis in the Taiwan Strait. Such attempts to spark fear in the public, however, did not succeed in 1996 and 2000. Whether they will succeed this time by causing middle-of-the-road voters to dump the green camp and vote blue remains to be seen.

Given that the Constitution remains problematic after six amendments, it is reasonable to write a new Constitution to solve the problems once and for all. It's only that, with its disadvantaged position in the legislature, the DPP has difficulty pushing for a referendum law, not to mention a new Constitution. Chen has spelled out the ultimate goal of Taiwan's democratization, but more effort will be needed to achieve it.

Pan-blue camp slams Chen's call for a new Constitution

By Huang Tai-lin

STAFF REPORTER

"Chen's rhetoric highlights that he knows only how to campaign, but not how to govern a country."－James Soong, People First Party chairman

The pan-blue alliance of the People First Party (PFP) and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday condemned President Chen Shui-bian's call for a new Constitution, describing Chen's rhetoric as "senseless."

"Chen's rhetoric highlights that he knows only how to campaign, but not how to govern a country," said PFP Chairman James Soong at a press conference held at the PFP's headquarters.

Criticizing the Chen administration's record, Soong said the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) campaign strategy for the presidential election next March aims at shifting the public's focus away from its poor record and the nation's gloomy prospects.

Soong, running on a joint ticket with KMT Chairman Lien Chan, made the remarks a day after Chen pledged to push for a new Constitution in 2006 when the DPP turns 20 years old.

Referring to the "Five Nos" which Chen proposed during his inauguration speech in 2000, Soong said Chen had "eaten his own words."

The "Five Nos" were: no declaration of Taiwanese independence, no change in the country's name, no change of Constitution, no referendum on Taiwan's future and no abolition of the unification guidelines.

"Chen also has Five Nos," Soong said.

"He does not abide by the Constitution, does not respect mainstream opinion, does not attach importance to people's well-being, does not recognize the Republic of China and his words have no credibility," he said.

"Mainstream opinion wants [Taiwan] to maintain the status quo. Chen's about-face leadership style and policies are worrisome to compatriots," Soong said, who then took the opportunity to promote his running mate.

"Lien's steady governing is what the nation needs to head toward a prosperous future," Soong said.

Soong stressed that he and Lien shared a tacit understanding that "the future leader of the Republic of China will uphold promises made to the world and not create trouble."

"The KMT-PFP alliance will push for economic prosperity for Taiwan under the Constitution," Soong said.

Soong lost the presidential election to Chen in 2000 after having been accused by Lien of embezzlement of KMT party funds.

Meanwhile, Lien also dismissed Chen's proposal yesterday as "senseless" and refused to comment further.

KMT spokesman Alex Tsai, however, said Chen's promoting a new Constitution was a tantamount to setting a timetable for promoting independence.

Tsai said Chen's rhetoric is an attempt to consolidate the DPP's basic voting base in the run-up to the March election.

"It was also one of Chen's campaign strategies -- he hopes such remarks would prompt China to react negatively, which would swing the Taiwanese public's votes in his favor," Tsai said.

"The KMT will not dance to the DPP's music on this issue," he said.

The primary concern of the KMT is the nation's economic status and not the issue of Constitutional amendment, Tsai said.

"It is the KMT-PFP alliance's goal to bring Taiwan out of the dire straits into which the DPP has led us during the past three years," he said.

DPP officials speak out to defend Chen's proposal

CNA , TAIPEI

President Chen Shui-bian's call for a new Constitution represents an offer of a "vision" to spur a process of constitutional reform to craft a political framework that would fit the nation's present realities, Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) legislative caucus convener Ko Chien-ming yesterday.

Ko said the DPP has traditionally been active in putting forward policy initiatives to prod reform.

"While pledging to push for a new Constitution in 2006, Chen was actually offering a new `vision' for the government's work agenda in anticipation of his re-election next year," Ko said.

In contrast, Ko said, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan and People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong have not presented any new vision or national development blueprint since they decided to team up for next year's presidential election.

"It is regrettable that the KMT and the PFP have rushed to stigmatize Chen's proposal," Ko said, adding that the opposition leaders should have instead presented their own initiatives or visions for public discussion.

Ko said the DPP will be more than willing to consult with the opposition parties and the public on constitutional reform issues.

The DPP legislative caucus' other whip, Chen Chi-mai, also defended the president's "new Constitution" overture, saying that the president is obliged to offer a new vision for future constitutional reform since he has decided to seek re-election.

Chen Chi-mai said the six rounds of constitutional amendments during the previous KMT administration had left all the political parties dissatisfied.

"Now is the time for us to deal with this problem," he said.

The DPP has long advocated a presidential system under which the central government would have only three branches for administrative, legislative and judicial affairs instead of the current five branches, Chen Chi-mai said.

"As the DPP's candidate for the 2004 election, it is only natural for President Chen to present his vision on the critical constitutional reform issue," he said.

He said the pan-blue candidates should express their views on the topic.

DPP Deputy Secretary-General Lee Ying-yuan said the president's call has nothing to do with the issue of whether Taiwan should pursue de jure independence or unify with China.

Analysts see Chen attempting to shift focus from record

EARLY CAMPAIGNING: The president promised to rewrite the Constitution in an attempt to divert the public's attention from his record, observers said

By Lin Chieh-yu

STAFF REPORTER

"As long as the debates about public polices are replaced by the issue of independence and unification, the DPP and President Chen will meet their strategic target."－Hu Wen-huei, senior political columnist

President Chen Shui-bian's promise to rewrite the Constitution in 2006 has fueled further tension between supporters of independence and unification which, political observers said, the president hopes to use as a base for a presidential election campaign on "national identity," thereby shifting the focus from the government's poor record.

"Although the backlash from conservatives and vested interests may be partly blamed for many of the recent protests and criticism of the government's public policies ... it is unquestionable that the ruling party has tried to initiate the debate between independence and unification to avoid being trapped on public issues," said Ku Chung-hwa, president of the Taipei Society.

During an interview with the Taipei Times in June 1999, Chen, then the DPP's presidential candidate, had vowed to "rewrite the Constitution" by changing the name and the territory of the country. The Constitution states that the nation's territory still includes China.

However, as the election drew near he avoided the issue and then declared the "Five Noes" in his inaugural speech: no declaration of independence; no change in the nation's title; no referendum to change the status quo; no incorporating "special state-to-state" in the Constitution and no abandoning the National Reunification Council.

"Comparing his remarks about the cross-strait relationship during the past four years, Chen first brought up `a new framework for the future integration of the two sides of the Taiwan Strait' and invited Beijing leaders for a talk, but he then pledged that Taiwan should work out its own way and suggested `one country on each side' and now he intends to rewrite the Constitution," Ku said, "All this shows that President Chen's cross-strait policies are very inconsistent.

"The president seems to believe that everybody is expecting him to give details about how he is going to rewrite the Constitution, so he may dominate public opinion, but the problem is whether the public really cares about the issue, or maybe they care more about their livelihoods," Ku said.

Senior political columnist Hu Wen-huei said that it does not matter whether the press supports or questions the president's determination to carry out the promise.

"As long as the debates about public policies are replaced by the issue of independence and unification, the DPP and President Chen will meet their strategic target," Hu said. "Even if it is not a plus to the campaign, it will definitely not get any minus points.

"President Chen's remarks about rewriting the Constitution basically are based on the assumption that there are only a few `non-biased voters' and most of the voters have already made up their minds, so how to mobilize the enthusiasm of supporters is important," Hu said.

"That is why the president did not evade the issue and instead he has tried to make use of the high-level issue to separate the voters into two major groups and seek support from the remaining 5 percent to 10 percent of undecided voters by calling on grassroots leaders," Hu said.

An aide to Chen confirmed that the president will visit several grassroots opinion leaders to exchange views.

"It is better to create friendship first, so we may have a chance for further cooperation," he said.

Death penalty a common bond between China, US

AFP , HONG KONG

If there is one human rights issue China and the US have no discord over, it is their adherence to the death penalty but in both countries there is unease over its imposition, leading American academics say.

"One thing the United States and China agree on is the death penalty," said Jerome Cohen of the Council on Foreign Relations in the US during a discussion at Hong Kong University at the weekend.

"I think it is a very sad thing," he said.

China liberally uses the death penalty but keeps the number of executions a closely guarded state secret.

According to the London-based rights group Amnesty International, China executes more people in a year than the rest of the world combined.

A recent book titled China's New Rulers, purportedly written by a highly placed government source and published last year in the US, said China has executed up to 15,000 people a year during its four-year "strike hard" campaign against crime.

Earlier this year, the government said the campaign would continue for at least another year.

Robin Maher, director of the American Bar Association Death Penalty Representation Project, said "with more than 3,500 people on death row today, the United States is facing a real crisis of confidence in its system of capital punishment."

"The release of more than 100 wrongfully convicted persons from death row in recent years has even the most ardent supporters of capital punishment wondering whether we are executing the guilty or the innocent," Maher said.

Cohen is an authority on the Chinese legal system and Maher recently visited Beijing and Shanghai, where she participated in programs on reform of the death penalty and the role of defense lawyers in the US.

"Even chairman Mao reminded us that once you cut off a man's head, it can't grow back," Cohen said, noting that many legal experts in China were now suggesting ways to limit executions.

"Chinese scholars are suggesting reducing the number of offences for which the death penalty can be applied," he said.

Better representation for criminals could also reduce executions, he said, noting criminals do not always receive legal representation. Defense lawyers are also vulnerable to punishment because the Chinese Communist Party has a stranglehold on the police and judiciary, exercising control over both investigation and trial.

"In the post-9/11 situation, we now have this threat beginning to emerge [in the US]," Cohen said, referring to the difficulties faced by lawyers defending people accused of acts of terrorism since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

Maher said that in the US, "chief among the problems with the capital punishment system is the inadequacy of qualified and experienced lawyers to represent those charged."

Representing someone charged with the death penalty is politically unpopular in many southern states where more than 80 percent of executions take place. On the other hand, 98 percent of prosecutors in death penalty jurisdictions are white and they also have political ambitions, Maher added.

While there is no public discussion on the ethics of the death penalty in China, Cohen said judges were profoundly concerned about public opinion.

Currently Chinese public opinion as gauged through independent Internet Web sites favors the death penalty but anger often flares over false convictions, the academics pointed out.

Maher said that US Attorney General John Ashcroft has instructed his subordinates to seek the death penalty in more federal cases than ever before.

Science has given critics of the death penalty "renewed energy" after DNA testing exposed many wrongful convictions.

This year, while US public support remains constant at about 68 percent, it drops to a bare majority when life in prison is offered as an alternative, Maher said.

Taiwanese help children in Mongolia

REACHING OUT: World Vision Taiwan is opening its fourth aid project in a country where poor children sometimes escape the cold in underground sewage systems

CNA , TAIPEI

Lee Hung-kuang and his wife, who lost their only daughter, aged six, several months ago, seem to have regained meaning in their life recently after adopting two children in Mongolia.

Accompanied by Hank Du, president of World Vision Taiwan, the Lees went to Mongolia earlier this month to meet their newly adopted children -- a six-year-old boy and a five-year-old girl.

The Lees were so overwhelmingly enthusiastic that they probably emptied an entire department store's children's section before heading to Ulan Bator, according to Du. The Lees spent more than one hour in their first meeting with their new son and daughter just on handing out gifts, Du said.

Du accompanied several "new parents" from Taiwan to Mongolia this month. The group also visited Arvayheer -- a barren area to the northwest of the Gobi Desert -- where World Vision Taiwan is opening its fourth children's aid project in Mongolia, following similar projects in Ulan Bator, Bulgan and Dungobi.

"We now need 500 Taiwanese parents to adopt or financially aid 500 orphans or children from poor families in Arvayheer for the new project," Du announced in a meeting with some adoptive parents in Taipei on Sunday.

In Arvayheer, World Vision Taiwan is not only taking care of children who are orphans or from poor families, the organization is also helping the locals to start up their own vegetable farms -- a daunting task in a windy desert-like place without an irrigation system, Du said.

Lee said World Vision Taiwan's efforts allowed him to see another face of the world.

"The Arvayheer residents' resilience in surviving harsh conditions and striving to make a living moved me greatly," he said.

According to Du, 36 percent of the Mongolian population has an average daily income of less than US$1, while some 4,000 poor children are regularly out on the streets to earn a living because their parents have no income.

Du said he saw hundreds of children spend cold winter nights in underground sewage systems in Ulan Bator trying to keep warm with the heat from the pipelines.

He said he couldn't stand being in the sewage system for more than three seconds because of the stench, but the pipelines are the only shelter that the poor Mongolian children could find to survive in the blizzard-prone country.

Since 1993, World Vision Taiwan has operated a children's aid program in the Mongolian capital of Ulan Bator, offering hot food, clean clothes and counseling services to children in several establishments, Du said.

In Ulan Bator, World Vision Taiwan has also operated four "lighthouse" centers, where children can obtain education and skills training in addition to food and clothes, he added.

Currently, about 3,000 Taiwanese act as sponsors to about the same number of Mongolian children, providing them with financial aid, all through World Vision Taiwan's arrangements, according to a staff member of the organization.

The number of Mongolian children who have been aided by Taiwanese exceeds 10,000 over the past 10 years, the staff member said.

World Vision Taiwan has extended help to some 60 million children and adults in 180 countries and areas around the world in cooperation with other World Vision organizations over the past several decades, she said.

At present, the organization financially sponsors some 60,000 needy children at home and abroad, on an annual allocation of around NT$100 million (US$2.94 million), mostly collected from fund-raising drives, she added.

A `disease of poverty' strikes Tibet's villages

GROWING SPECULATION: Researchers believe that the soil is infected with a fungus that is polluting water and contributes to spread of a bond disease

NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE , BORONGGANG, CHINA

The valley is nestled in the green Himalayan foothills, a wedge of cultivated land where the scenery is so idyllic and the wheat and highland barley grow so high that it is easy to overlook the tiny man sitting by the road with a black pig on his lap.

His name is Gyampa, and when he props up his stunted body with a cane, he stands maybe 1.2m tall. He is bent at odd angles, his wrists knotted and his elbows swollen the size of lemons. He is not agile or strong enough to control the pig, so he has roped it around the waist and staked it to the ground.

He has what people in this tiny village simply call "the pain," known to medical researchers as Kashin-Beck disease, or Big Bone disease. Nor is he alone. Nearly everyone in the village, including the children who happily show off their swollen elbows, either suffers from or has been exposed to the disease. The situation is so bad that in October the government is planning to move everyone away.

"There is an illness in this ground," said Trakock, 39, a villager who like many Tibetans uses only one name, and whose sister, Trasel, suffers from the disease.

Throughout Tibet, where much of the population lives in villages largely disconnected from the modern world, Big Bone disease is a severe problem, infecting roughly 9 percent of the population. In the most severe cases, the disease can cause the long bones in the arms and legs to stop growing during childhood, as was the case with Gyampa.

Researchers believe that the soil near villages like Boronggang is infected with a fungus that contributes to Big Bone disease. Scientists have yet to discover a cure, but they believe that bad water, poor diet and crops grown in mineral-deficient soil are also at least partly to blame.

"It's really a disease of poverty," said Francoise Begaux, who worked with villagers for five years as part of a research project sponsored by Doctors Without Borders, and who now works for another aid group, Terma Foundation. "It's the people who can't afford to have different kinds of food."

The problem is compounded, Begaux and other researchers say, because Kashin-Beck is largely forgotten. The disease has been eradicated or brought under control nearly everywhere except China. Within China, it is particularly acute in Tibet, one of the poorest regions. Yet last year Doctors Without Borders halted their Tibet project because of budget restraints.

So late last summer, the physicians and researchers who had been visiting Boronggang about twice a week stopped coming. They did leave gifts: a new grain thresher to help dry the wheat and barley and, in the process, reduce risks of contamination; fungicide to treat the fields and a final shipment of the iodine and selenium that had been used to offset mineral deficiencies in the children. Those medicines have since run out.

"I don't take any medicine anymore because the doctors are not here anymore," said Tenzen Pungtsock, a 15-year-old boy, whose elbow is knobby, but who seems to have a milder form of the disease.

The children today at least have a better understanding of why so many people are sick. When he was a child, Gyampa, 61, knew only that he stopped growing, not why. In medical terms, the growth cartilage in his arms and legs developed necrosis and stunted his growth. With age, his joints have weakened with arthritis, so that now he earns money by mending clothes. He is too weak to do farm work.

Chinese officials boast that farmers and herdsmen in rural Tibet enjoy free health care, but Gyampa said he never saw a doctor until about a decade ago, when the first Western physicians arrived in the village. Now that the Western doctors have stopping coming, he takes Tibetan medicine for the pain that regularly flares in his hips and joints.

Asia must be Lilliputian to the Chinese Gulliver

By Jessie Ho

STAFF REPORTER

"China's influence on the global economy is irreversible, but its social and economic structures and policies are still not stable."－Eric Teo, council secretary to the Singapore Institute of International Affairs

China is becoming the determining factor for Asia's regional economy, as countries become increasingly dependant on China's manufacturing abilities and incredible buying power, while simultaneously worrying about the potential collapse of the Chinese economy, analysts said yesterday.

"China is now the world's largest manufacturing center, producing about 90 percent of the world's goods," Cheng Chu-yuan, an economics professor at Ball State University in the US, said at a seminar on regional economic security in the Asia Pacific region held by the Foundation on International and Cross-Strait Studies yesterday.

China's population now exceeds 1.3 billion, which supplies the country with a huge pool of low-wage workers, Cheng said. The low cost of labor, as well as an "open-door" investment policy begun in 1979, have helped China become the largest recipient of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the world, Cheng added.

From 1978 to last year, China attracted US$447.97 billion in FDI, which was almost 15 percent of China's total capital investment.

China's increasing economic strength makes it an irresistible business partner for Asian countries that are seeking to expand trade relations.

"One of the FTAs [free trade agreements] involving ASEAN that has received the most attention recently is that with China," Shujiro Urata, a social science professor at Japan's Waseda University, said at the seminar.

China signed a framework agreement on comprehensive economic cooperation with ASEAN in November last year, offering various schemes to attract ASEAN members, such as economic cooperation with new ASEAN members and trade liberalization for agricultural products, Urata said.

In addition to ASEAN, China has also proposed signing FTAs with Japan and South Korea.

While acknowledging China's importance to global trade, Eric Teo, council secretary to the Singapore Institute of International Affairs, suggested that governments should be wary of putting all their eggs into one basket.

"Indeed, China's influence on the global economy is irreversible, but its social and economic structures and policies are still not stable," Teo said. "The question we need to ask here is, is there any room for resilience if there are any accidents during `China fever?'"

Teo used the SARS outbreak earlier this year as an example of the kind of problems that might occur in the future. ASEAN member countries were worried that a potential embargo imposed by the Chinese authorities might severely damage their economies.

"Many economists are now speculating that the Chinese economy may collapse, following the pattern of what occurred in the USSR, if China fails to adjust to its economic transition," Teo said.

To safeguard Asian economies from the havoc the Chinese juggernaut could wreak on other countries should its economic development go awry, Wu Rong-i, president of the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research, suggested the formation of a regional multilateral economic cooperation organization, such as an East Asian FTA or an Asian Monetary Fund.

Wu is not the first official to make such a proposal. The East Asia Vision Group, which was created during a summit meeting of "ASEAN+3" (ASEAN, China, Japan and South Korea) in 1998 to study long-term ideas for economic cooperation, previously suggested establishing an East Asian FTA.

However, the proposal has not yet reached the agenda at meetings of regional leaders, according to Urata.

Meanwhile, Wu readdressed Taiwan's intention to be included in regional trade integration programs.

After signing its first FTA with Panama on Aug. 21, Taiwan is now actively seeking to create FTAs with Japan, Singapore and the US.

However, many nations are reluctant to sign the pact due to the political influence exerted by China.

"It will be unjust to exclude Taiwan from regional trade cooperation, since Taiwan has the 15th largest economy in the world and is a member of the WTO," Wu said.

What's in a name? Gobbledygook

By Graham Norris

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has a list of five names it can use when applying for membership of international organizations. They are pretty similar to each other and, with one exception, completely impractical.

First on the list, which is in no particular order, is the country's official title, the "Republic of China" (ROC). This name has become increasingly unpopular with ethnic Taiwanese, as it is the name of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-controlled government that settled here more than 50 years ago. Nevertheless, changing it would require amending the Constitution, which no one seems to want to do and risks a military response from China.

Internationally, it is confused with the People's Republic of China (PRC), as demonstrated by complaints about the nation's passport that prompted the government to add the word "Taiwan" in Roman script to the cover. Beijing's opposition to the term Republic of China means that the government can only use it in more obscure international organizations such as the Asian Productivity Organization, of which China is not a member.

Second on the list is "Taiwan." As the preferred name of independence supporters, it is completely unacceptable to China unless it is being used to represent a province of the PRC. Despite being the most recognizable abroad, perhaps thanks to the cheap plastic products churned out in the 1970s stamped with "Made in Taiwan," the name is divisive at home and impossible to use officially overseas.

Third is "Taiwan, Republic of China." It is odd that the Democratic Progressive Party government should find this name acceptable as it harkens back to the time when the government claimed all of China, of which Taiwan was only one part. It also suggests that Kinmen and Matsu are not included, because they are parts of the ROC that certainly aren't part of Taiwan.

Despite its inaccuracies, it contains the key word recognizable to foreigners: Taiwan. But the name written this way is probably now only found in addresses.

Fourth is "Republic of China (Taiwan)." This is the name that has been used in the past two bids to rejoin the UN. It is also the country's title in the Central American Bank for Economic Integration. It is little different from just saying Republic of China, apart from a suggested shorthand form has been tacked on the end in parentheses. Previous UN bids used Republic of China on Taiwan, even though the government had already given up any suggestion that it controlled the rest of China. Once again, it contains the key recognizable word but is unacceptable to China.

The last name on the list is "Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu." This name is the most acceptable to China, probably because it is such a mouthful that no one will be able to remember it, and it sounds nothing like the name of a country. When combined with a suitable prefix, such as "separate customs territory of" (the name used in the WTO), it becomes an unwieldy eight-word name. The acronym, SCTTPKM, doesn't really trip off the tongue either.

It is nevertheless being used to apply for observership of the World Health Organization (Health Entity of..…) and the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (Independent Customs Territory of ….).

But it does contain Taiwan, which almost certainly would be the shorthand version used by diplomats.

When the KMT was in power, the list was much longer and included some of the better known euphemisms, such as Chinese Taipei. Taiwan competes in just about every sporting event and beauty pageant under this name, which was useful in the past because it could be translated into Chinese two different ways. In Taiwan, it was "Chunghua Taipei," using the ROC's translation of China, while the PRC used its favored term "Chungguo Taipei."

Internationally, the name doesn't really mean anything, apart from a suggestion that Taipei is either full of something Chinese or that it is Chinese, whatever that might mean.

Beijing recently seems to have taken a dislike to even this name. Earlier this month, China demanded that the Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering change Taiwan's title from "Chinese Taipei" to "Taipei, China" in return for it joining the group, a request that was tacitly rejected.

China was perhaps hoping to repeat its success of the mid-1980s, when it succeeded in persuading the Asian Development Bank to change Taiwan's name to "Taipei, China" without the consent of the government in Taipei.

So what can Taiwan do? Without military, economic or diplomatic clout, or even a domestic consensus on the country's name, very little. While Beijing tries to get everyone to call Taiwan "Taipei, China," all the government can do is try to persuade organizations to use a name that at least includes Taiwan, such as Taiwan, Penghu, blah blah blah. So maybe it should find a new name to compete under in beauty pageants (Beautiful Entity of …?) and the Olympics (Running and Jumping Entity of …?)

Does it even matter what name the country uses to join the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission? Even if it declared independence and changed its name to Taiwan, Joe Lunchbox in the West would still confuse it with Thailand.

Graham Norris is a freelance writer in Taipei.