Taipei –
Taiwan President Lai Ching-te feted the island’s baseball team on Tuesday after their victory at the Premier12 tournament 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.