When I was a kid, I played baseball like a lot of other American kids.  I played some little league ball, dreaming of playing for a big league team someday.  And every summer, we’d all watch the Little League World Series, held every year in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, on TV.

And seemingly every year a team from Taiwan would beat the crap out of the diminutive American kids.  The kids from Taiwan were huge for 12 year-olds.  Way bigger than I was at 12, for sure.  We won’t get into the “did they cheat” thing back then – they did get busted in the 1990s, but I’m taking about their winning streak from 1971-1974.  

That was how I knew who and where Taiwan was.  Years later I work in Silicon Valley, and Taiwan is the place where things are designed and manufactured and where game-changing CEOs immigrate from.  Nvidia’s Jensen Huang.  Supermicro’s Charles Liang. AMD’s Lisa Su.  And many more across the years.  

Made in Taiwan or designed in Taiwan was a good thing for technology products like computer motherboards, memory chips and other random widgets that became obsolete soon after launch so you’d have to buy a new one.  Hard drives, phones, and anything that was based on a semiconductor chip. 

Then little by little Taiwan started to not exist anymore.  Airlines stopped advertising flights to Taiwan.  Professional golfers no longer came from Taiwan.  No more Olympic Taiwanese teams.  The American press stopped mentioning Taiwan in their articles.  

So what happened?  Where did Taiwan go?  Well, China happened and “influenced” all the above parties to no longer recognize Taiwan or mention it, because doing so would recognize the Taiwanese as an independent country and people. Joe Biden stated earlier this year that the United States does NOT support Taiwan’s independence. Really. The United States doesn’t support, or the Democrats don’t support Taiwan, or because Joe Biden is so far in debt to China, he has to say that? Biden in 2024 almost assures a China invasion and a worldwide financial collapse. Mark my words. Trump will stand up for Taiwan and fight China. He did when he was in office and will do it again. In the meantime….

Welcome to the party and may we introduce to you – Chinese Taipei.  

Never mind that Taipei is a city, and that Taiwan holds independent democratic elections and has a sitting president, and their citizens are free to travel, vote, think, search on Google, have a profile on Facebook and use social media as they please.  China said you can’t say TAIWAN or we will punish you.  Don’t F with us, we’re China….BITCH! 

And guess what, the world is now China’s bitch and is too damn scared to utter the word Taiwan or put it in print for fear China will get bent out of shape and kick them out of their sandbox.  

Let’s take a look at who all is afraid of getting on China’s bad side for not saying Chinese Taipei – The PGA, LPGA, Little League World Series and of course Major League Baseball.  Every major airline in the world.  And there are many more.  

Taiwanese golfers are no longer from Taiwan and airplanes no longer fly to Taiwan, because if they list that now-banned word Taiwan on their destination chart, China will pull their pass to land in China…and guess what, all the airlines said sure.  

You see, China views Taiwan as a breakaway state of sorts, that it’s their property and they hold rights to the place and will eventually take it back.  The only thing that has stopped them thus far is the United States’ pledge to defend Taiwan.  

Make no mistake, Taiwan’s freedom is in the world’s best interests as a huge percentage of the technology we use on a daily basis is designed there.  China builds the stuff with their cheap labor but China doesn’t have the creativity to actually design stuff.  They copy, steal and reverse engineer other people’s work and then build their own products, kicking out the originator.  See: Google. Uber. Twitter. Facebook. 

The world is so afraid of China that only twelve, yes, 12 countries actually recognize Taiwan – 12 countries maybe one-percent of the population can locate on a world atlas.  Ready for this one?  Here are the 12 in alphabetical order: Belize, Eswatini (the former Swaziland), Guatemala, Haiti, Marshall Islands, Palau, Paraguay, St Kitts & Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent & the Grenadines, Tuvalu, and Vatican City.  

Being totally honest, I’ve never heard of a few of these places.  And that’s reflective on China’s pull on the world market.  

Want your cheap $h!t built in China?  Want to sell your widgets in China?  Want to fly your airplanes into China?  Want to deliver parcels into China? Want Chinese investments? Want Chinese tourists to spend money in your cities?  Want your brand advertised in China?  Want to avoid the People’s Republic of China’s wrath of negative public relations?  

Good, we understand each other.  Taiwan is now Chinese Taipei.  Bitch.