The Highlight of the Olympics Will Be...

When Taiwan wins a medal and the athlete pulls out the official national flag for Taiwan and raises it like You-Chen Liu did here in Seattle less than a year ago. Although it would probably be a lot more dangerous for a Taiwan athlete to do so in a stadium likely filled with many legions of security guards and Chinese who believe that Taiwan is a part of China. Nevertheless, it would be interesting to see how China reacts on this "world-stage," and I have no doubt that they already have protocols or plans in place that would quickly bring down the athlete who raises the Taiwan flag.

It is wrong for the IOC to continue to allow China to force Taiwan to accept things at their will; it is wrong for China to force Taiwan to be "Chinese" at their will. While Taiwan is under agreement to "follow the rules" and not use the official national flag, nor the national anthem if they place, so was all parties concerned under agreement to use "Zhonghua Taipei" as the title for Taiwan in the Olympics- and yet that too had to be "re-negotiated" this time around and declared a "diplomatic victory" by Ma.

Michael Turton's resposne to a comment in his blog on the Seattle event puts it into perspective:

Comment:

Michael, the Chinese Taipei team agreed to participate under the team flag (as shown in the WCG site) - shouldn't he honor the agreement and drape himeself in the team flag?

Turton's Response:

Yes, and when blacks went on the bus in the south in the 1960s, they agreed not to sit up front too.

Yes, for the most part agreements should be followed, but when things are clearly wrong- should we just stand down and not protest? Besides that, the IOC/China/Taiwan agreement on the "Chinese Taipei" name had been agreed upon since 1989. Yet, China "protested" this agreement this past month in trying to use something along the lines of "China's Taipei" or "Zhongguo Taipei," instead of the agreed upon name of "Zhonghua Taipei" or "Chinese Taipei."

You-Chen Liu, you are our hero.


That said, with the KMT in power now, it is likely that the KMT would have serious consequences in place for the athletes if they did not adhere to the "Chinese Taipei" that is supposed to be them. Therefore, the chances of this occuring? Slim, but I'm hopeful.