The fight for an independent Taiwan took a severe blow on Nov. 26 – or did it?
The News Lens
Date: 2018/12/03
By: By Brian Hioe
Credit: AP / Mary Altaffer
The proposal for Taiwan to participate in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics under the name “Taiwan,” instead of “Chinese Taipei,” was among those defeated during the referendum held simultaneously with 2018 local elections. This will have important ramifications going forward.
Taiwanese seem to have primarily driven to vote against the referendum because of fears that this would lead Taiwanese to be blocked entirely from participation in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, as a result of Chinese pressure on the International Olympics Committee. The referendum on Taiwan’s participation in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics was the most popular of the referendum proposals on the slate in 2018 local elections, getting more than one million signatures. Fears that Taiwan could be blocked entirely from participating in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics actually only emerged in the week before voting was to actually take place.
separate countries’ during a rally in Taipei on Oct. 20, 2018.
But what now for Taiwanese independence advocates? The referendum on what name Taiwan should participate in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics under was pushed for by Taiwanese independence advocates, it seems unlikely that Taiwanese would be willing to vote for Taiwanese independence if the possibility of merely being blocked from Olympics participation provokes such fear.
One can draw several conclusions from the results. First, as political scientist Austin Wang has pointed out, one notes that the vote was close, with 45 percent of those who voted still voting favorably for Taiwan participating as “Taiwan” instead of “Chinese Taipei” in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. 4,730,000 voted for Taiwan participating as “Taiwan”, while 5,730,000 voted for Taiwan participating as “Chinese Taipei.” Despite the referendum proposal being defeated, this was actually still more percentage of the total votes that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) received in 2018 elections.
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