Virus Outbreak: Majority wants passports remade to end confusion

By Shelley Shan / Staff reporter





More than 70 percent of Taiwanese in a poll have said that the government should remove the nation’s English-language name “Republic of China” from the cover of the nation’s passports and only use “Taiwan” as the nation’s English name so that foreign immigration officials would not mistake Taiwanese travelers for Chinese nationals, a poll showed.

The New Power Party (NPP) released the results of its survey yesterday.

The cover of the nation’s passports bears the name “Republic of China” in English under the nation’s official Chinese name, while “Taiwan” is printed in English under the national emblem.

Republic of China passports are pictured in Taipei on Feb. 26. Photo: Lu Yi-hsuan, Taipei Times

However, 74.3 percent of respondents said that the passport’s cover should use just “Taiwan” as the English title, as the nation and Taiwanese have often been negatively associated with China amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The change would avoid Taiwanese being confused with Chinese, they said.

According to the poll, 51.2 percent said they were very supportive of the suggestion, 23.1 percent said they supported it, 10.8 percent said they did not support it and 6.4 percent said they absolutely did not support it, while 8.5 percent did not express any opinion.

“People have suggested using stickers or passport holders to distinguish the Taiwanese passport from the Chinese passport. However, stickers might cause confusion. We suggest that the passport cover be redesigned,” NPP Chairman Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明) said.

The party would ask people to submit their ideas for a new passport cover design before the summer vacation, Hsu said, adding that it would work with experts to create samples for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to consider.

The survey, conducted on Monday and Tuesday last week, collected 1,085 valid questionnaires and has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

The results were weighted based on gender, age and education, the party said.