Baseball and politics mix in China vs. Taiwan

BEIJING (AP) In a game that wasn't supposed to be about politics - not at all, fans kept insisting - politics seemed to be everywhere.

It was in the talk about flags, and in the vehemence of the cheering when China grabbed the lead at Beijing's Olympic baseball stadium. It was in chatter about how important it was to succeed in this particular game.

"We needed to win," said Chen Long, a 20-year-old Chinese swaggering out of the stadium after China came from behind to earn its first-ever Olympic baseball victory, beating Taiwan 8-7 in a surprise upset in extra innings. "This was a must-win game for China, an emotional game."

Asked whether he was referring to the troubled history of China-Taiwan relations, he began to mumble: It's about how hard the Chinese team trained, he said, it's about the advancement of Chinese sports.

Though ties between Beijing and Taipei are perhaps the warmest in decades, with tourism and trade thriving between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan island and both sides playing up their good relations, there have been nearly 60 years of tortured diplomacy across the strait.

And it's hard to ignore than history - even at the ballpark.

"This game is about baseball, it's not about politics," said Xing Hu Ling, 28, a Chinese food services worker. Unlike in Taiwan, where baseball is a national obsession, the Chinese are relatively new to the game and it has little public following. So Xing attended Friday's game to back her nation. "I know that not many people will come, so the Chinese team needs my support," she said.

But she had something else to add, a comment refracted through the blurry prism of any China-Taiwan sporting event: "Even if Taiwan wins it's still like China winning."

For anyone who has forgotten their Cold War history: China and Taiwan split amid the civil war that brought the communists to power on the mainland in 1949, with anti-communist forces setting up a separate government in Taipei. While China still believes Taiwan is an integral part of its territory, the current government in Taipei wants to continue Taiwan's de facto independence indefinitely.

"This is the politics of identity," said Andrew Yang of Taipei's Council of Advanced Political Studies said of the baseball face-off. "Taiwan says this is purely a Taiwanese team, it has nothing to do with China. But the Chinese audience surely considers Taiwan as part of China ... You can see the emotional frustrations."

For years, much of the Western world saw Taiwan as the real Chinese government, an anti-communist beachhead to be supported at all costs. But beginning in the 1970s, as nations began reaching out to Beijing and the Chinese economy began blossoming, Taiwan found itself increasingly isolated. Today, Taiwan has just 23 allies - mostly obscure, impoverished nations who recognize Taipei in exchange for aid - and it is not a member of most major international organizations, including the United Nations.

If relations are pretty good now, with a government in Taipei that avoids talk of formal independence, it doesn't take much to spark trouble.

Barely a month ago, Taiwan was threatening not to attend the Beijing Olympics because it was angered by Beijing's attempts to refer to the island by the Chinese-language name "Zhongguo Taipei," a term that implies Taiwan is part of China. Taipei prefers the more ambiguous "Zhonghua Taipei." Both are satisfied with the English name for the Taiwan team: Chinese Taipei.

In China-Taiwan relations these days, the divide often comes down to such seemingly arcane debates about semantics and nomenclature. Taiwan, for instance, has been effectively independent since 1949 - but China has made clear it would invade the island if it declares independence. Beijing still keeps an estimated 1,300 missiles aimed at the island.

For years, the Olympics were a prime battleground in their public relations war, with the two countries taking turns sitting out various games to protest the other's presence or the name the International Olympic Committee would allow Taiwan to use.

While those dark days are over, the Olympics still offer room for trouble.

Last week, China deported a pro-independence Taiwanese activist who wanted to cheer the Taiwanese competing at the Olympics Games.

And if Taiwan wins a medal, there is yet another look through that prism of politics and sports. Since China views the Taiwanese flag and national anthem as unacceptable political symbols, Taipei must herald its medal-winners with a special Olympic flag and anthem.

While Beijing worried ahead of the games about spectators sneaking Taiwanese flags into matches, fans said Friday that even some Taiwanese Olympic flags - an unobjectionable banner that includes the Olympic rings - were confiscated when they came through Chinese security at the stadium.

"We're here to back the Taiwan team, but there are some things that seem political," said Candy Lee, who brought a delegation of baseball fans from Taiwan for the Olympics, and who said her own small flag was taken away.

Despite the compromise it represents, that Olympic flag still reflects how important sports - and particularly baseball - is to Taiwan. Olympic baseball is one of Taiwan's few chances to meet on equal ground with many of the powerful nations that no longer recognize it, to prove that it still counts to countries like the United States, Japan and China.

Just ask Lee: "We want people to know we are here, that we are Taiwan."

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