Taiwan Post (Chunghwa Post)

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Taiwan Post Company Limited

Type	Government-owned corporation
Founded	1896, 2003 major restructuration
Headquarters	Taipei, Taiwan
Key people	Samuel J.S. Hsu (Chairman), Huang Shui-Cheng (President and Director), Wu Min-Yu (Vice-president finance)
Industry	Courier, Funds savings
Products	First Class mail, Domestic Mail, Logistics
Revenue	▲$23.0 billion NT (2006)
Employees	Approx. 26,000
Website	www.post.gov.tw

The Taiwan Post Co., Ltd. (台灣郵政股份有限公司), commonly shortened to Taiwan Post (台灣郵政) is the official postal service of the Republic of China, providing mail service in the ROC controlled areas of Taiwan, Penghu (Pescadores), Kinmen, Matsu, and other out-laying islands. It also provides a funds saving service. Taiwan Post was a government organization of Ministry of Traffic and Communication until 2003, when it was reorganized into a Government-owned corporation. From its founding in 1896 until February 9, 2007, the postal service was known as Chunghwa Post Co., Ltd. (中華郵政股份有限公司) or Chunghwa Post (中華郵政, literally "Chinese Postal Service", for short). The name was changed in 2007 as part of President Chen Shui-bian's "rectification of names" campaign to change references of "China" in state-owned enterprises to "Taiwan." However, because he lacked support in the opposition controlled legislature, all relevant laws still refer to "Chunghwa Post", rather than "Taiwan Post", thus the legality of the renaming is still in question.

President-elect Ma Ying-jeou of the Kuomintang has previously promised that he will restore the entity's name back to Chunghwa Post, once he takes office on May 20, 2008. After his election in March 2008, he stated that he regards the purported renaming as "illegal."^[1] Ma's office has also requested that his inauguration commemorative stamp bear the words "Republic of China" instead of "Taiwan"; however, any such changes to postage stamps will not occur until after Ma takes office on May 20. ^[2]

Its affiliation with the Universal Postal Union began in 1914, but ended in 1972 when it was replaced by the China Post shortly after China's seat in the United Nations was handed over to the People's Republic of China. Because of its non-UPU affiliation, domestic mail envelopes and packages labeling does not follow UPU standards.

International Reply Coupons aren't available to Taiwan and mail are not delivered to or sent from directly from Taiwan, but rather routed through third party countries, with Japan Post as a major route facility for incoming mail sent from the Americas region.

1 Facilities
2 Name change
3 Company status
4 References
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Facilities

Taiwan Post delivers standard letters, registered mail, parcels, and express mail through the territory of the Republic of China. There are twenty-three large offices through the country which supervises some 1,300 smaller post offices.^[3]

Taichung Post Office

[edit] Name change

In February 2007, the government of ROC President Chen Shui-bian announced that the name of the postal service would be officially changed to Taiwan Post as part of his plan to disassociate Taiwan from China, with sign changes occurring at branches in Taiwan in February 12. ^[4]

The name change was made official on February 9 when the board approved the change of name to Taiwan Post Co. (台灣郵政) after a delay of several hours due to protests from unions which opposed the costs associated with the name change. ^[5] ^[6] The state-run Central News Agency claimed the name change is a restoration of the name Governor Liu Ming-chuan used when he founded the Taiwan Post Administration in 1888^[7]. Furthermore, Taiwan Post began printing "Taiwan" instead of "Republic of China" on postage stamps.

Taiwan Post mailbox.

[edit] Company status

Taiwan Post, then called "Chunghwa Post" became a government-owned corporation after a major restructuration of the mail administration in 2003, and officially changed to its current name on February 9, 2007 when the board of directors approved the name change. However, many have contested the legality of such a name change, because there was no amendment or approval from the legislature. The government has stated that it is prepared to change the company back to the Chunghwa Post if necessary.

A residual legal issue is that the postal monopoly in Taiwan is by law given to the "Chunghwa Post", not "Taiwan Post", and thus any company other than "Chunghwa Post" providing mail service is illegal. The Government claimed that the name change is lawful and would not affect mail service^[8]. A recent government attempt to introduce bills amending four pieces of legislation to facilitate the name change at law were blocked by the Pan-Blue coalition, which controls the legislature.