Written by Brian Hioe.
Image credit: 林郁婷 Lin, Yu-Ting/ Facebook.
The Olympics have long served as a stand-in for contestation about national identity in Taiwan. After all, much as Taiwan’s status is contested geopolitically, this also takes place in the framework of the Olympics. Taiwan does not compete in the Olympics as “Taiwan” or the “Republic of China” but as “Chinese Taipei.” As “Chinese Taipei”, a different flag is used to represent Taiwan than the national flag, nor is the national anthem played when Taiwanese athletes win medals.
There have long been calls for Taiwan to participate in the Olympics as “Taiwan” rather than “Chinese Taipei.” Yet this was voted down by a national referendum in 2018, given fears about Taiwanese athletes not being allowed to participate in the Olympics altogether if Taiwan were to try and change the name that it participates in the Olympics under.
Yet the political impact of this event is often neglected. The “Formosa Alliance,” consisting of pro-independence DPP party elders that broke off from Tsai Ing-wen to try and support Lai Ching-te in his attempt to replace her as the DPP’s 2020 presidential candidate, originally came together as a political grouping in support of the referendum campaign for Taiwan participating as “Taiwan” rather than “Chinese Taipei.” Apart from backing Lai’s failed attempt to oust Tsai for the DPP’s 2020 presidential nomination, the Formosa Alliance eventually formed its own political party and unsuccessfully tried to compete electorally with the DPP.
At the time of the initial 2018 referendum campaign, the Formosa Alliance enjoyed the support of progressive young politicians that emerged in the wake of the 2014 Sunflower Movement. This included members of Third Force parties such as the New Power Party and Taiwan Statebuilding Party, as well as individuals such as Miao Poya of the Social Democratic Party. But after the Formosa Alliance sought to challenge Tsai, it rapidly lost support from young progressives. Instead, the Formosa Alliance came to be thought of as a political grouping of pro-independence elder pan-Green conservatives that opposed Tsai not only with the claim that she was insufficiently pro-independence but because of progressive stances such as her legalisation of gay marriage and because they opposed Tsai as a female politician.
Polls indicate that the Taiwanese public, particularly young people, strongly support maintaining the status quo rather than seeking a formal declaration of political independence. It is thought that even if identity polls also show that young people overwhelmingly identify as Taiwanese and Chinese, this is because the public does not wish to hazard the risk of retaliation from China.
The 2018 vote on what name Taiwan should compete in the Olympics under, as well as that was voted down because of fears regarding Taiwan facing consequences–in the form of Taiwanese athletes being unable to participate in the Olympics altogether. In this sense, the issue can be seen as a stand-in for issues regarding sovereignty, as well as how pan-Green young people differ from older pro-independence elders because of progressive political values on issues such as gay marriage and support for the status quo.
Interestingly enough, however, the issue of progressive and pluralistic social values was again flagged in the 2024 Olympics when Taiwanese boxing champion Lin Yu-ting came under fire from Harry Potter author JK Rowling with allegations that she is transgender and was originally assigned male at birth.
This is not true, but such claims were based on the fact that Lin, along with Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, failed unspecified tests from the International Boxing Association (IBA) in 2023 during the 2023 Women’s World Boxing Championships. The IBA was suspended of recognition by the International Olympics Committee in 2019 and stripped of its status in 2023 due to IBA president Umar Kremlev having shifted much of the organisation’s operations to Russia and the organisation seeking to ban Ukrainian athletes from participating under their flag in past years. Kremlev is an associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin and has accompanied Putin on visits to China, during which he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping. It is not impossible that the IBA’s actions were intended to constrain Taiwan at China’s behest.
Either way, the political response in Taiwan was bipartisan in nature, with both pan-Green and pan-Blue politicians rallying behind Lin. Former president Tsai Ing-wen was one of those to vocally support Lin early on, and New Taipei mayor Hou You-yi, the KMT’s 2024 presidential candidate, also called for support of Lin, especially given that Lin is a native of New Taipei.
It was largely this controversy involving allegations about Lin’s gender that dominated the discussion of the Olympics. Past years had seen tensions flare up between Taiwan and China with anger from nationalistic Chinese netizens when Taiwanese entertainers did not frame Taiwanese athletes as Chinese athletes–particularly in cases when Taiwanese athletes beat out Chinese athletes for the gold, as in Taiwan’s men’s double badminton win in 2021 at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics by Lee Yang and Wang Chi-lin. Apart from anger against the praises of Lee and Wang by individuals such as entertainer Dee Hsu, some Chinese outrage was directed against that Lee and Wang emphasised that they were athletes from Taiwan on social media immediately after their victory–as if to emphasise that they were not athletes from “Chinese Taipei” or some other iteration of China.
Though Lee and Wang again won gold medals this year against the world’s no. 1 ranked duo Liang Weikeng and Wang Chang, compared to past years, there was not such controversy. As the controversy regarding Lin takes place in the same timeframe as a number of rulings on the recognition of gender ID changes without surgery requirements, it is anticipated that even if Lin is not transgender, the issue has been made newly topical.
To this extent, when Taiwan’s internationally contested status came up at the 2024 Paris Olympics, it was largely in response to cases of ROC flags or flags displaying emblems of Taiwan being seized by Olympics staff or Chinese attendees of Olympics games. Taiwan’s diplomatic staff in Paris later called on local authorities to investigate such incidents. At the same time, some reports suggested that Chinese individuals were seen directing Olympics staff about what flags to seize–which included signs in Taiwan’s zhuyin fuhao rendering system. Some media coverage also took place in Taiwan regarding how Taiwan was listed alongside Russia and Belarus in information issued to the Olympic staff about what flags were not allowed to be displayed. KMT legislator Weng Hsiao-ling also stoked anger after referring to Lee and Wang as the “pride of the Chinese people” as if to still frame Taiwan as part of China. When asked to clarify her comments by the media, Weng stated, “We are all Chinese. Whether the Taiwan or the mainland team wins, both are the pride of the Chinese people.”
Still, even if Taiwan’s issues regarding sovereignty were fronted at the Paris Olympics, it is notable that few elements of the pan-Green camp were tempted to lean into explicitly independence activism regarding the Olympics, and this did not come from state actors. Instead, it was mostly Taiwanese groups in Europe, including some online influencers, who took an active role in advocacy about Taiwan’s sovereignty. While advocacy efforts on sovereignty by Taiwan have sometimes taken place as collaborations between civil society groups and the Taiwanese government, such as with regard to Taiwan’s lack of observer status in the World Health Organization, this likely illustrates how the Lai administration aims to take a low-profile attempt to efforts to advance Taiwanese sovereignty, rather than be seen as openly orchestrating them in a manner that could lead to retaliation from China.
Brian Hioe is one of the founding editors of New Bloom. He is a freelance journalist, as well as a translator. A New York native and Taiwanese-American, he has an MA in East Asian Languages and Cultures from Columbia University. He graduated from New York University with majors in History, East Asian Studies, and English Literature. He was a Democracy and Human Rights Service Fellow at the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy from 2017 to 2018. He is currently a non-resident fellow at the University of Nottingham’s Taiwan Research Hub.
This article was published as part of a special issue on ‘Sports and Identity’.
Taiwan Insight 