Taiwan and the Asian Games: A Name Born in Nagoya, Returning to Nagoya Forty-Seven Years Later

30-second overview: On October 4, 2026, the Aichi–Nagoya Asian Games closed with the Chinese Taipei delegation bringing home 5 gold, 17 silver, and 33 bronze medals, ranking 15th on the medal table. At the opening ceremony, the delegation carried the Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee flag, and the medal ceremony featured the melody of the national anthem. This arrangement stems from an October 1979 International Olympic Committee resolution made in Nagoya—forty-seven years later, the Asian Games returned to this city for the first time.

Keywords: Asian Games, Chinese Taipei, Nagoya Resolution, Olympic Committee model, Yang Chuan-kwang

The Nagoya Closing Ceremony

The 20th Asian Games, which opened on September 19, 2026, and closed on October 4, took place in Aichi Prefecture and Nagoya, Japan. The Chinese Taipei delegation fielded 482 athletes competing across 34 sports, with approximately 150 coaching and support staff.¹ At the conclusion, the delegation's record was 5 gold, 17 silver, and 33 bronze, placing 15th on the medal table.²³

The five gold medals were won by: Yu Kai-wen and Huang Shih-yuan in mixed doubles soft tennis on September 21; Wang Kuan-hung in men's 200-meter butterfly swimming on September 25; Fu Zhao-xuan in men's high jump track and field on September 27; Lin Yu-ting in women's 60-kilogram boxing on October 2; and Hsieh Shu-wei and Liang En-shuo in women's doubles tennis on October 3.²

When these athletes entered the stadium, the delegation was led by the plum-blossom flag of the Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee. At medal ceremonies, the melody played was from the national anthem; neither the blue-sky-white-sun-red-earth flag nor the national anthem itself appeared on this field.⁴ This entire arrangement has a name: the "Olympic Committee model," and it was born in the very city hosting this Asian Games.

1954 Manila: Two Gold Medals at the First Asian Games

The Asian Games began in 1951 in New Delhi; the second edition moved to Manila in 1954, where the Republic of China delegation participated for the first time and brought home two gold medals.⁵ One was Yang Chuan-kwang's men's decathlon, in which he won with 5,454 points—the beginning of his reputation as "Asia's Iron Man."⁶

The other gold came from the football team. A 1954 newsreel preserved in the National Culture Memory Bank of the Ministry of Culture documented the day that team returned home: after the squad, composed mainly of players based in Hong Kong, won the championship in Manila, twenty-six players arrived at Songshan Airport, received flowers, and then paraded through Taipei's streets.⁷

Four years later at the Tokyo Asian Games, Yang Chuan-kwang won the decathlon again with 7,101 points, also bringing home two silver medals in long jump and 110-meter hurdles, and one bronze in 400-meter hurdles.⁶ That was Taiwan's most glorious period in Asian Games track and field.

1962 Jakarta: The Host Country Shut Taiwan Out

The four-year cycle did not always align smoothly. At the 1962 Jakarta Asian Games, the host nation Indonesia, on religious and political grounds, refused to allow Israel and Taiwan to compete. The International Olympic Committee consequently terminated its financial support for the Games and revoked Indonesia's IOC membership; Indonesia then organized its own "Games of the New Emerging Forces" the following year.⁸ That year, Taiwan did not stand on the Asian Games field.

The 1973 Vote: 38 to 13

After the People's Republic of China gained China's UN seat in 1971, membership in international sports organizations began to shift. In 1973, the Asian Games Federation voted 38 to 13 to expel the Republic of China's membership, replacing it with the People's Republic of China. The 1974 Tehran Asian Games became the first in which the People's Republic of China participated, with Mongolia and North Korea also gaining eligibility that same year.⁸

From the 1970 Bangkok Asian Games to the 1990 Beijing Asian Games, Taiwan's seat at the Asian Games disappeared for twenty years, absent from the 1978, 1982, and 1986 editions.⁴⁸

The Name Was Decided in Nagoya

During these twenty years of absence, the new name was being written. In June and October 1979, IOC President Killanin convened Executive Board meetings in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Nagoya, Japan, respectively. The final decision, made by mail ballot 62 to 17, was: the Beijing Olympic Committee would be named the "Chinese Olympic Committee," using the flag and anthem of the People's Republic of China; the Taipei Olympic Committee would continue participating in the Olympic Games under the name "Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee," but must submit a different flag and anthem from before, subject to Executive Board approval.⁴

After this resolution, two further procedures remained between the IOC and the Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee. On March 23, 1981, Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee President Shen Chia-ming and IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch signed an agreement in Lausanne, Switzerland, establishing the committee name and the design of the plum-blossom flag incorporating the blue-sky-white-sun emblem and the Olympic rings. The IOC provided written assurance that the Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee would enjoy equal rights and status as other members in all activities.⁴ On April 6, 1989, Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee Secretary-General Li Ching-hua and Chinese Olympic Committee President He Zhenliang signed an agreement in Hong Kong stipulating that all Chinese-language references to Taiwan's sports teams and organizations would be called "Chinese Taipei"—the Chinese name was finalized at this point, and the term "Olympic Committee model" has been used ever since.⁴

1990 Beijing: Entering for the First Time Under That Name, with the Host Country That Took the Seat Seventeen Years Earlier

From September 22 to October 7, 1990, the 11th Asian Games were held in Beijing, and Taiwan was permitted to compete under the name "Chinese Taipei."⁸ This was the first time athletes entered the Asian Games with the newly finalized name, and the host nation was the same one that had replaced the Republic of China's membership seventeen years earlier by vote count. Also becoming official sports for the first time that year were sepak takraw, kabaddi, and soft tennis; soft tennis later became a consistent medal source for Taiwan, with the first gold medal in Nagoya in 2026 coming from this sport.²⁸

The Athletes Under That Name

For athletes on the field, the name and flag-and-anthem are conditions they face every day but cannot decide for themselves. In Taiwan, broadcasts and reports mostly call this team the "Chinese Taipei team" directly, sometimes also referring to it as the "Taiwan team."⁴

Looking at the Asian Games roster of athletes is part of the answer to this question: from Yang Chuan-kwang's decathlon in Manila in 1954 to Fu Zhao-xuan jumping 2.25 meters in the rain in 2026, this line passes through membership expulsion, a twenty-year absence, and the acquisition of a new name in Nagoya.²⁶ The name was given by others; the results were made by the athletes themselves on the field.

What the Nagoya Special Exhibition Said

In 2026, marking the 20th Asian Games, the National Taiwan History Museum launched "Asia Present: Taiwan and the Asian Games Special Exhibition," with curatorial narrative approaching the Games from four scales: continental, national, social, and individual.⁹ The second unit is titled "Ready to Go—'Our' Delegation," and the exhibition text states the matter quite plainly: "Participating in the Asian Games is not only a stage for athletes to pursue glory, but also an attempt to position 'who we are' in international society. Who represents 'us,' and under what name 'we' compete are questions rooted in a history of international political maneuvering."⁹

Reading that sentence in 2026 Nagoya carries special resonance. This city decided the name for this team in 1979; forty-seven years later, athletes brought that name back here and won 55 medals across 34 sports.²⁴

Further reading:

• Chinese Taipei: The Ticket That Let Taiwan Compete, Yet Could Not Print Its Own Name — The complete origin of this name in the Olympic context, and the debate it sparked within Taiwan.
• Taiwan's Sports Development and the Olympics: A Team Called "Chinese Taipei" — The same team's athletes and records under the Olympic rings.
• Fu Zhao-xuan: Taiwan Men's Track and Field's Sixty-Year Wait for That Jump — The third gold medal at the 2026 Nagoya Asian Games, and the line connecting it to Wu A-min in 1966.

References