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Taipei:
Fed up with being confused for China amid the coronavirus pandemic and Beijing’s stepped-up efforts to say sovereignty, Taiwan mentioned on Wednesday it will redesign its passport to offer higher prominence to the island’s identify.
Taiwan has complained through the outbreak that its nationals have encountered issues coming into different nations, as Taiwanese passports have the phrases “Republic of China”, its formal identify, written in giant English font on the high, with “Taiwan” printed on the backside.
The new passport, anticipated to return into circulation in January, removes the massive English phrases “Republic of China”, although the identify in Chinese characters will stay, and enlarges the phrase “Taiwan” in English.
Taiwan Foreign Minister Joseph Wu mentioned new passports have been wanted to forestall their nationals being mistaken for Chinese residents, particularly with the stepped up entry checks many nations have begun because the pandemic started.
“Since the beginning of the Wuhan pneumonia outbreak this year our people have kept hoping that we can give more prominence to Taiwan’s visibility, avoiding people mistakenly thinking they are from China,” Wu informed reporters.
China claims democratic Taiwan as its sovereign territory, and says solely it has the precise to talk for the island internationally, a place it has pushed strongly through the pandemic, particularly on the World Health Organization.
Taipei says this has confused nations and led them to impose the identical restrictions on Taiwanese travellers as on Chinese, 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 identify. But the pandemic has shot the difficulty again into the highlight.[nL8N2BP2D0]
The authorities can also be contemplating a reputation change – or a minimum of a full redesign – for Taiwan’s largest service, China Airlines <2610.TW>, 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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