The foreign ministry is remaining tight-lipped about a US official’s proposal to change the name of Taiwan’s representative office in the US.
US State Department official Daniel J. Kritenbrink has proposed allowing Taiwan’s office in Washington to change its official name. The naming of Taiwan’s representative offices abroad is a sensitive issue, and so the foreign ministry says the time is not yet right to reveal what the office’s new name might be.
Taiwan’s representative offices abroad typically have official names that avoid mention of the word “Taiwan”. This is to avoid upsetting China, which considers itself the only legitimate representative of Taiwan on the international stage.
Countries that allow Taiwanese offices abroad to explicitly call themselves Taiwanese representative offices risk China’s anger. Recently, China has taken punitive action against Lithuania for allowing Taiwan to refer to its newly-opened office in Vilnius as a “Taiwanese Representative Office”.