By Yimou Lee and Ben Blanchard
TAIPEI (Reuters) – Taiwan President Lai Ching-te feted the island’s baseball team on Tuesday after their victory at an international championship in Japan, a rare sporting achievement which has brought a surge of pride in being Taiwanese.
Taiwan competes at global sports events as “Chinese Taipei” to avoid political objections from Beijing which views the island as its own, but its athletes are widely referred to by the president, his government and many Taiwanese as just being from “Team Taiwan”.
The team took part in a thronged ticker tape parade through central Taipei to the presidential office on the back of military jeeps and trucks, all wearing black hoodies with the word “Taiwan” in English printed on the front.
“Thank you for putting Taiwan at the top of the world. You’re all the light of Taiwan,” Lai, wearing the same hoodie, told the team.
Captain Chen Chieh-hsien on Sunday celebrated the decisive win over Japan at the WBSC Premier12 final in Tokyo by gesturing to the blank space on his jersey where a team’s country name is usually written.
On Taiwan’s uniform only the words “CT” appear – an abbreviation for Chinese Taipei.
The moment went viral on social media and was seen by many as a symbol of defiance against China, which Taipei frequently accuses of putting pressure on international bodies for the name “Taiwan” not to be used.
“That gesture was to tell everyone that we are players from Taiwan,” Chen told reporters as he was welcomed by hundreds of fans at the airport upon his return late on Monday, including Taiwan Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim.
Speaking to the team after Lai, Hsiao thanked them for letting the world see Taiwan, a name she said was sometimes neglected on the world stage.
“Behind the name of Taiwan, there is pride that we see today, but there is also a lot of sadness, setbacks and challenges,” she said.
Baseball is hugely popular in Taiwan having been introduced during the Japanese colonial era from 1895-1945.
In 2018, Taiwanese voters in a referendum rejected a proposal to enter the Olympics as “Taiwan” rather than “Chinese Taipei”. Many feared that changing the name would prompt China to try to block the island from the Games altogether.
Lai and his government reject Beijing’s sovereignty claims, saying only Taiwan’s people can decide their future.
(Reporting by Yimou Lee and Ben Blanchard, editing by Ed Osmond)
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