Do you tell your friends about your summer trip to the Republic of Korea? Or were you visiting the Kingdom of Belgium that year? Do those friends invite you to visit their hometowns in the French Republic, or the Federal Republic of Germany? Maybe you can stop at the Grand Dutchy of Luxembourg along the way from one to the other?

Common names are common for a reason!

When shills from an aggressor nation in a highly politicized international conflict intentionally inject ambiguity into the names used by the states on either side of the conflict, you should strive to be as articulate as possible to avoid misunderstandings.

While you are technically correct, and it's true this is a real issue in PRC/ROC politics it's a strange hill to die on here.

I'd note that you linked to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_China_Armed_Forces to support your argument.

But the very first sentence of that page is "The Republic of China Armed Forces, commonly known as the Taiwanese Armed Forces..."

People commonly refer to the United States of America as "America" which is odd since there's also Central and South America. Being common doesn't equal being correct, and in this case the ambiguity is used by the aggressor state (PRC) to get people to believe a certain narrative. I'll continue to inform folks where I can as most people aren't aware of the situation between the ROC and PRC. I don't care about downvotes on this site _especially_ if it's because I'm stating facts that people do not like.

You'd better write to the US government too.

Here's the TAIWAN ALLIES INTERNATIONAL PROTECTION AND ENHANCEMENT INITIATIVE (TAIPEI) ACT OF 2019. It starts: To express United States support for Taiwan's diplomatic alliances around the world.

The name "Republic of China" (as opposed to "People's Republic of China") isn't used. However there are sentences like this:

Since the election of President Tsai Ing-wen as President of Taiwan in 2016, the Government of the People's Republic of China has intensified its efforts to pressure Taiwan.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/167...

lol, see my first post in this thread. I said I didn't like the fact that the USA calls the ROC "Taiwan", and I think you are overestimating my ability to influence USA foreign policy. The USA doesn't have formal diplomatic relations with the ROC so using "Taiwan" is a kludge.

I don't have any dislike for the fact that the ROC is an independent country, whether my government diplomatically recognizes them as such or not. I'm just pointing out that, if a Taiwanese family invites you to dinner, they're going to be weirded out by you continually saying "Republic of China" throughout the conversation.

I have lots of Taiwanese friends, but I appreciate your concern. I do use 中華民國 when talking about politics or anything related to the government or cross-strait relations. If I'm talking about the island of Taiwan specifically, I have no problem saying "Taiwan".

That sounds good. =) By the way, and not to put too fine a point on it, is there a reason why you don't call them Republic-of-Chinese friends?

Because all of them are actually from the island of Taiwan (not Kinmen or other holdings of the ROC), and they generally (and increasingly) do not want to be associated with "the Chinese": https://esc.nccu.edu.tw/course/news.php?Sn=166

"China" is a bad brand name nowadays. I really wish they could formally rename their country with a resumption of the civil war.