Members of the media take photographs of a paper minimize out of the brand new Taiwan passport displayed in Taiwan
Taipei:
Fed up with being confused for China amid the coronavirus pandemic and Beijing’s stepped-up efforts to claim sovereignty, Taiwan stated on Wednesday it will redesign its passport to present higher prominence to the island’s title.
Taiwan has complained in the course of the outbreak that its nationals have encountered issues getting into different nations, as Taiwanese passports have the phrases “Republic of China”, its formal title, written in giant English font on the prime, with “Taiwan” printed on the backside.
The brand new passport, anticipated to return into circulation in January, removes the massive English phrases “Republic of China”, although the title in Chinese language characters will stay, and enlarges the phrase “Taiwan” in English.
Taiwan International Minister Joseph Wu stated new passports had been wanted to forestall their nationals being mistaken for Chinese language residents, particularly with the stepped up entry checks many nations have begun because the pandemic started.
“Because the starting of the Wuhan pneumonia outbreak this 12 months our individuals have saved hoping that we can provide extra prominence to Taiwan’s visibility, avoiding individuals mistakenly pondering they’re from China,” Wu informed reporters.
China claims democratic Taiwan as its sovereign territory, and says solely it has the best to talk for the island internationally, a place it has pushed strongly in the course of the pandemic, particularly on the World Well being Group.
Taipei says this has confused nations and led them to impose the identical restrictions on Taiwanese travellers as on Chinese language, and has minimised Taiwan’s personal profitable efforts to regulate the virus and much decrease case quantity.
Taiwan has been debating for years who it’s and what precisely its relationship needs to be with China – together with the island’s title. However the pandemic has shot the difficulty again into the highlight.[nL8N2BP2D0]
The federal government can also be contemplating a reputation change – or no less than a full redesign – for Taiwan’s largest service, China Airways , once more to keep away from confusion with China.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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