By EDWARD WONG

KAOHSIUNG, Taiwan - From six table tennis tables at the Olympic training center here comes the rhythmic clackclack- clack of ball against paddle against tabletop.
Outside, the tropical heat of southern Taiwan seems to wither even the palm trees, while inside, the players break into a sweat at the mere thought of this: trading serves with the team from mainland China in the Olympic Games next month.
“No matter how good China is, we hope to get a medal from the Olympics, a player named Chang Yen-shu said after watching his teammates practice one morning. “They’re hosting the competition and they know everything well. They’re the best players in the world. Until now, no one has been able to beat them.
Mr. Chang, 29, and the other four members of Taiwan’s table tennis delegation aim to upset mainland China at its national obsession. On the Olympic competition schedule, Mr. Chang’s team is not in the same part of the draw as China, so the Taiwanese have high hopes of facing their nemesis in the finals.
China has won 33 Olympic medals in table tennis, 16 of them gold; Taiwan has won only a silver and a bronze - both earned by Chen Jing, a woman who immigrated from the mainland.
A medal match between China and Taiwan would be one of the great underdog stories of the Games, not only because of the dominance of China in the sport, but also because of the unique relationship between the mainland and the island. The Chinese Communist Party regards Taiwan, a thriving democracy of 23 million, as a rebel province that must be brought back into the fold, by force if necessary.
Taiwanese athletes insist that the Olympics are about sports, not politics. Besides, relations between mainland China and Taiwan have been on the upswing after Ma Ying-Jeou, the conciliatory Taiwanese president, was inaugurated in May.
Yet the mainland and Taiwan have a long history of political rivalry over the Olympics , so Taiwan’s participation in the first Games on Chinese soil has the potential for volatility.
Taiwan’s contingent includes 76 athletes competing in 14 sports, with medal favorites in tae kwon do, archery and weight lifting. Olympic pride has been growing in Taiwan ever since two tae kwon do athletes, a man and a woman, each brought back a gold medal from the 2004 Games in Athens - the first gold for Taiwan. (The island’s athletes have won six silvers and seven bronzes.)
But some Taiwanese officials fear that Beijing could mar next month’s Games by trying to fuse sports and politics by identifying the Taiwanese delegation in ways that suggest that the island belongs to the mainland.
“We’re a bit concerned, said Tsai Ingwen, the chairwoman of the Democratic Progressive Party, which ruled this island for eight years until this May and has tried to distance Taiwan from the mainland. “What we fear is being treated like Hong Kong or Macao, which are part of China.
At the heart of the anxiety is a political disagreement over the Chinese words for the name of the Olympic delegation from Taiwan, known in English as Chinese Taipei.
The Chinese word for the first part of the name is Zhonghua. That comes from Zhonghua Minguo, or Republic of China, the name that the dominant political group here, the Kuomintang, prefers for Taiwan.
Mainland China signed an agreement with Taiwan in 1989 recognizing Zhonghua Taipei - Chinese Taipei - as the name for Taiwan’s delegation.
But sports officials on the mainland often call the Taiwanese delegation Zhongguo Taipei. Zhongguo, which means Middle Kingdom, is the Chinese name for China.
Referring to the Taiwanese delegation as Zhongguo Taipei implies that the athletes and the island they represent are part of China.
As early as last year, political tensions between China and Taiwan made their mark on the coming Games. The Taiwanese government led by Chen Shui-bian, then the president, who tried to move Taiwan closer to formal independence, decided in April 2007 not to allow the torch to pass through the island because the flame would then go on to Hong Kong, signifying that Taiwan was part of China.
That canceled an agreement Tsai Chenwei, president of the Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee, had signed in Beijing in December 2006 allowing the torch to come through Taiwan. Mr. Tsai said that he was disappointed with the decision.
“The torch hasn’t come here since the Summer Games were held in Tokyo in 1964, he said.
In recent years, Taiwanese athletes going to the mainland for various competitions have generally been welcomed, Mr. Tsai said.
Sung Yu-chi, 27, a first-time Olympian in tae kwon do, said, Sports and politics are separated.
“In China, because we’re the same ethnicity, it’s easier to compete there, he added.
But one of Mr. Sung’s tae kwon do teammates said she hoped to use the Olympics to announce the island’s presence to the world.
“We want to win gold medals so people in the world know about Taiwan, said the teammate, Yang Shu-chun, 22. “Taiwan is very close to China, but it’s just a small island. I worry people don’t know where Taiwan is. But if I win a gold medal, people will ask, ‘Where’s Taiwan?’ and try to get to know us.