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Warm welcome for Taiwanese
The delegation from Taiwan checked in at the Olympic Village on Wednesday, with a symbolic flag-raising ceremony that marked the beginning of their first Games effort on Chinese soil.
The Chinese Taipei Olympic flag, which displays the emblem of the National Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee on a white background, was hoisted to the tune of San Min Chu-i or Three Principles of the People by Sun Yat-sen, the founder of modern China.
The flag and anthem are the product of a compromise reached by governments on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. Taiwan is not allowed to use its official flag and anthem in international sports competitions, as Beijing perceives it as offensive given Taipei's sovereignty claims.
But there were no signs of tension on Wednesday over the dispute. Young Games volunteers screamed as the Taiwanese athletes marched into the ceremony's site. Village mayor Chen Zhili, a former Politburo member and now a deputy chairman of the top legislature, even greeted the guests in the Minnan dialect, a goodwill gesture that was met with huge applause from the 42 Taiwanese coaches, athletes and officials.
"Her pronunciation wasn't bad," quipped Thomas Tsai Chen-wei, Taiwan Olympic Committee chairman, who was satisfied with the reception his athletes had received on the mainland so far and did not feel "dwarfed", a term used by the island's pro-independence politicians to refer to Beijing's sovereignty claim over the island.
A spokesman for the mainland's Taiwan Affairs Office sparked an outcry last month by saying that Zhonghua Taibei (Chinese Taipei) and Zhongguo Taibei (China's Taipei) were valid translations for the English name of the island's Olympic delegation. Xinhua later reported that the office denied Beijing was seeking to change the name, which has been Chinese Taipei since the 1970s.