Taiwan Releases New Passport Design to Distinguish it From China

NEW DELHI: Taiwan has released a new design for the country’s passport highlighting the English word for ‘Taiwan’ eyeing to draw a clearer distinction between Taiwan and China.

The new cover repositions and significantly shrinks the words Republic of China (ROC), the country’s official name, making them hard to see at first glance, while enlarging and using a bold font for ‘Taiwan’, according to Taiwan’s Central News Agency (CAN).

The Chinese version of ROC remains at the top of the cover, but the English version of the name originally positioned below the Chinese now circles the national emblem in the middle of the cover, reported CNA.

Below the emblem, the word “Taiwan” has not only been made noticeably larger but also been repositioned. The current passport shows the word ‘Taiwan’ the Chinese word for ‘passport’ under that, and the English word for ‘passport’ under that, but the new version puts the Chinese word for ‘passport’ at the top, with the next two lines reading ‘Taiwan’ and ‘passport’.

At a press conference announcing the new design Wednesday, Foreign Minister Joseph Wu said the redesign was in response to a resolution passed by lawmakers in July that asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) to highlight Taiwan over China on the passport cover.

“The new cover keeps all the same elements we have on the existing cover but we highlighted the English word for ‘Taiwan’ and moved it close to the word ‘passport’ to make it clear that the passport is a Taiwan passport,” Wu said.

MOFA has notified the International Air Transport Association, foreign governments, airports, airlines and immigration authorities around the world about the upcoming passport cover change and sent samples of the new cover to them, Wu said.

The passport with the new cover design is scheduled to be issued on January 2021. People using existing passports can continue to use them until they expire, Wu said.

In a resolution passed on July 22, lawmakers asked MOFA to update the nation’s passport to highlight Taiwan over China and the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) to devise feasible ways to rename state-run China Airlines Ltd. (CAL) to differentiate it from its Chinese counterpart.

The word China in Taiwan’s official name has resulted in Taiwanese citizens being mistaken for nationals from mainland China, lawmakers argued, according to CNA.

Source: ET