Chinese Taipei
name used by Taiwan in international organizations and events
"Chinese Taipei" is the name used in various international organizations and tournaments for groups or delegations representing the Republic of China (ROC), a country commonly known as Taiwan.
Due to the one China principle stipulated by the People's Republic of China (PRC, China), Taiwan, being a non-UN member after its expulsion in 1971 with ongoing dispute of its sovereignty, was prohibited from using or displaying any of its national symbols that would represent the statehood of Taiwan, such as its national name, anthem and flag, at international events. The term "Chinese Taipei" was first proposed in 1979 and was eventually approved in the Nagoya Resolution, whereby both the ROC/Taiwan and the PRC/China obtained their right of participation and would remain as separate delegations in any activities of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and its associated organizations. This term came into official use in 1981 following a name change of the Republic of China Olympic Committee (ROCOC) to the Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee. This arrangement later became a model for the ROC/Taiwan to continue participating in various international organizations and diplomatic affairs other than the Olympic Games, including the World Trade Organization, the World Health Organization, the Metre Convention, APEC, and international pageants.
"Chinese Taipei" is a deliberately ambiguous term, designed to be equivocal about the political status of the ROC/Taiwan. The meaning of "Chinese" (Zhōnghuá, Chinese: 中華) is also ambiguous, so that either party is able to interpret it as national identity or cultural sphere (similar to ethnonyms as Anglo, Arab, Hispanic or Iranian). The specific mention of "Taipei" signifies its capital city without explicitly defining the certain territorial boundary of the ROC. Since the IOC has ruled out the use of the name "Republic of China", the neologism was considered as an expedient resolution and a more inclusive term than just "Taiwan" to both the Kuomintang, the ruling party of the ROC at the time during the Nagoya Resolution, and the PRC. The PRC's persistent policy is to keep Taipei isolated on the world stage and disagrees with any use of "Taiwan" as an official title, in order to prevent Taiwan from gaining international recognition for "independent statehood" separate from the PRC. The term "Taiwan, China" or "Taipei, China" was rejected by the ROC government because it could be construed as Taiwan being a subordinate region to the PRC.
Popular opinion in Taiwan has changed drastically in regard to the cross-strait relations and the nationalistic discourses since the democratization of Taiwan and the end of one-party rule by the Kuomintang. "Chinese Taipei" has since been viewed by many Taiwanese as an anachronistic, aggravating, and humiliating term. The Taiwan Name Rectification Campaign sought to alter the formal name from "Chinese Taipei" to "Taiwan" for representation in Olympic Games and further potential international events.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Chinese Taipei” is name used by Taiwan in international organizations and events. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Chinese, Taipei and name, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “name used by Taiwan in international organizations and events” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q216923. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1971, 1979 and 1981.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
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- Establish the record: confirm the title “Chinese Taipei”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Chinese Taipei primary sources, Chinese Taipei archive and Chinese research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Chinese Taipei” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.