TAIPEI, Taiwan -- When Beijing announced the route the Olympic flame will travel from Greece to China ahead of the 2008 Summer Games, officials dubbed the 85,000-mile odyssey a "journey of harmony."
But for Taiwan, an island that has ruled itself for almost 60 years but which Beijing claims as a renegade province, the trip may underscore a legacy of distrust and tension between the rival governments.
Ever since Beijing announced the route in April, declaring that the torch would travel from Vietnam to Taipei, Taiwan's capital, and then to Chinese-controlled Hong Kong, Taipei and Beijing have traded rhetorical blows.
Taiwan may boycott the relay, an act that could heighten tensions between the heavily armed governments in the run-up to the Olympics.
If Taiwan accepted the torch relay route Beijing had proposed, "the implication is that Taiwan is part of China ... but we believe we are an independent nation," said Lee Kao-hsiang, deputy minister of Taiwan's National Council on Physical Fitness and Sports. "If they don't change the route, we will say, `Thanks, but no thanks.'"
The standoff comes at a sensitive time in relations across the Taiwan Strait. While Taiwan and China have been estranged since the end of China's civil war in 1949, Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian has used his two terms in office to distance the island from its powerful neighbor.
By increasing teaching about Taiwanese history and playing down Chinese history in public schools, Chen has sought to promote an independent Taiwanese identity.
Taipei has also carried out a widespread campaign to replace China with Taiwan in the names of government offices and state-owned companies. One of the most recent switches happened in February, when Taiwan's government changed the name of the postal service from Chunghwa Post, which uses the Chinese word for China, to Taiwan Post.
To China, the moves have smacked of separatism, and Beijing has warned repeatedly that if Taipei declares independence, it will attack the island. In 2005, Beijing passed a law giving China legal grounds to invade Taiwan if Taipei attempts to gain independent statehood.
The move angered Washington, which has promised to protect Taiwan and fears upsetting the precarious status quo.
The torch relay is the latest in a long string of issues that Beijing and Taipei have used to promote their political agendas, said Phil Deans, a professor of international affairs at Temple University's Tokyo Campus.
