Taiwan files protest over ‘province of China’ label
Taiwan has formally objected to being called a “province of China” in a University of B.C. report, calling it a “highly improper, inappropriate and discriminatory designation” and “factually incorrect.”
UBC said the change from previous years’ reports was not politically motivated but inadvertently caused by a move to a standardized computer terminology and it has implemented a fix.
UBC is non-partisan and “does not take stands on political issues,” Kurt Heinrich, senior director of UBC media relations, said in a statement. “UBC will only refer to ‘Taiwan,’ without any additional descriptors, in future reports.”
But the fix didn’t come before causing a stir in Taipei, where the government feared UBC was “succumbing to pressure from Beijing,” according to a report Monday on the Taiwan News website.
Taiwan’s Foreign Affairs Ministry directed its Vancouver representative to lodge a complaint against UBC for “erroneously suggesting that the island country is part of Chinese territory,” the report said.
The news outlet reported the ministry considered the move “yet another example of Beijing’s continuing campaign to change how businesses and institutions worldwide refer to Taiwan,” including forcing global airlines to refer to Taiwan as part of China or face financial consequences.
It quoted a ministry spokeswoman, Joanne Ou, as saying, “We urge the University of British Columbia not to bow to China and to correct how it addresses Taiwan.”
The ministry directed its Western Canada representative, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Vancouver, to file a complaint against UBC.
“Employing ‘Taiwan (Province of China)’ as a term to characterize UBC students from Taiwan is simply discriminatory,” said the office’s director, Charles Teng, in a statement. “It is a fundamental affront to Taiwanese students for who they are.”
The designation was included in UBC’s 2019-20 enrolment report on a chart listing the place of origin of students on UBC’s Okanagan campus.
Teng said UBC’s designation was offensive because Taiwan has its own democratically elected government and Beijing has never controlled the island. “It’s Taiwan, it’s not part of China,” he said.
He called on UBC “to refrain from politicizing Taiwan’s name in their future references to Taiwan” and said the office “stands ready to take all possible measures to protect the rights of our students.”
“I don’t think it’s fair to Taiwan,” said Esther Lin, the chairwoman of the Taiwanese Canadian Cultural Society. “Taiwan has been on its own for 50 to 60 years.”
UBC Prof. Yves Tiberghien, an expert on Canada-China relations, said it was an inadvertent mistake made by technical engineers who “have no sense of politics.”
When UBC officials consulted him on the controversy on Monday morning, he told them, “This is something very sensitive. We have many Taiwanese students. This is serious, you don’t do this.”
He estimated there are 400 to 500 Taiwanese students on UBC’s
Vancouver campus. He said he recommended a return to status quo, when both China and Taiwan were happy to each be called by their preferred names.
Heinrich said the problem occurred when a university committee on data governance adopted International Organization for Standardization (ISO) country codes in its databases. ISO uses United Nations sources to define the names of countries, which referred to Taiwan as a province of China, he said.
“It is important to be clear that the utilization of ISO data standards is not indicative of the university taking a position regarding Taiwan,” he said.