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Taiwan Irked at Google's Version of Earth
frank_adrian314159 writes "As reported in The Register, Taiwan wants Google Earth to stop calling it a province of China. Although Google has yet to comment on this issue, it will be interesting to see the brightest minds that money can buy trying to solve what decades of diplomats have unsuccessfully wrestled with - how to balance the nationalistic pride of the inhabitants of Taiwan against the nationalistic pride of the inhabitants of mainland China." From the article: "Foreign ministry spokesman, Michel Lu, explained: 'It is incorrect to call Taiwan a province of China because we are not. We have contacted Google to express our position and asked them to correct the description.' Google has maintained a stony silence on the matter, presumably while it tries to work out a solution which will please both the Taiwanese and the hosts of the (lucrative, burgeoning, inviting) Chinese internet search business opportunity market."
Maybe they already figured out which side their bread was buttered on. After all, they are pretty sharp. They don't have to solve anything. They made the smart move in trying to get cozy with the next economic superpower. Now they can just ignore the complaining until it goes away.
"I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."
Question: Who does Google stand to make more money off of?
Google already knows the answer to this and that is why "Taiwan" is listed as such.
End of story. (For Taiwan at least)
Dr.O
---- The real Slashdot is still here. You just have to browse at -1 to read the comments.
that our country decided to hang the Taiwanese out to dry by engaging with China. Taiwan should be our real aly and we shouldn't be trading with China at all. If we had pursued that policy, I think that the PRC goverment would have fallen when the rest of the communist block fell and China would be free by now.
Thanks, Nixon (for nothing).
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
a province of China
It's not a province, it's a Republic of China. That's why the labels on manufactured goods say "Made in Taiwan ROC".
Google could always say they are using the ISO country names (and I think they are) and they will be happy to change it when ISO updates the name in their data.
("Kowtows to China" -- sometimes I crack myself up...)
So much for the "do no evil" schtick, huh?
Hey, once upon a time Gates was the clever, driven College drop-out sticking it to the Man, too, right? Eventually, they all embrace their inner Gekko.
Mebbe one of their two billionaire founders will sleep with his sister by mistake and the whole modern Greek Tragedy can be complete.
*sigh*
what's for lunch... haven't eaten lunch... starving...
...can they sort out the whole India / Pakistan / Kashmir thing too? That'd be great. Thanks.
-Rob
Biblical fiscal responsibility
"Taiwan, province of China" -- obvious bullshit, but it's required if you want to conduct business in the very biggest country of the world, one that happens to have one of most evil governments.
"Chinese Taipei" -- obvious bullshit, Taipei is the capital of the country, not the country itself.
"Republic of China" -- obvious bullshit, they were the Republic of China before the communist rebellion, but they can't claim to be the whole of China anymore.
"Taiwan" -- the geographic name. Perfectly neutral.
So... we nearly say "Germany" instead of "Federal Republic of Germany", its real name. We use "Poland" instead of "Republic of Poland". We say "China" instead of "People's Republic of China". So, why won't we just call Taiwan... "Taiwan"?
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Taiwan might be able to get Google to change... they sure as hell aren't going to get global recognition...
Sadly, Taiwan is doomed unless the US wants to provoke a third world war... which I hope to God they don't.
Google is "calling it in the air" as they say.
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http://mompp.sourceforge.net/
If the school bully says you have to say "uncle", that doesn't mean he's suddenly your real uncle...
Most countries, including America, do not see Taiwan as independent. Because of this, the UN does not either. If this is good enough for the UN, this should be good enough for Google (an American company).
Taiwan is both a democratic country and it maintains de facto rule--it has its own military that prevents China from walking over, and it maintains order within the island as well. As to its constitutional legitimacy... that is a separate question (if you're talking about from a historical perspective... but of course from a self-determination perspective they are legitimately independent).
That's the one Google will suck.
Kinda hard to "do no evil" when different people have different definitions.
Google needs to grow a pair and stand up on this issue rather than silently ignoring it and hoping it will go away.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
I'd say there's an empirical way of testing this. Do the Taiwanese pay taxes to the mainland government, are mainland government laws enforced in Taiwan? No, in both cases. Has Taiwan managed to maintain this state of affairs for a reasonable period of time? Yes. Then Taiwan has earnt its right not to be called a province.
Doesn't stop Google annoying the mainland government by calling it such, but you shouldn't let economics get in the way of the truth.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
A good test for that ever-famous item 6 on the ten things (part of the official corporate philosophy).
6. You can make money without doing evil.
Do they follow Yahoo's lead, and cater to the very oppressive Chinese gov? Or do they support a democracy that has been around just as long as China really, having been created in more or less the same instance. China, after all, has no less claim to being the authority over Taiwan than Taiwan has to being the authority over China.
How about it Google...gona "do no evil" here?
I know it's a troll....But I feel oblige to reply.
This is just the type of mentality that is so prevalent in North America. Not all americans are closed-minded, ignorant racists, but a great many are. These comments and attitudes just smears the rest of the population in the eye of the international community. Better results can be obtained by these people if they went out to look for a job, or doing something constructive. But, then again, what useful things can they do?
"Taiwan" -- the geographic name. Perfectly neutral.
When you have the political boundary layer on, it should show the political names, not the geographic names.
If there is a dispute of some sort (tiawan, tibet, etc) then the program should be clear that they use a specific set of political names (ie, "As recognized by the UN") and stay out of political rumbling. Tiawan is simply trying to bring this issue up in the "court of world opinion" again, and Google is a convenient talking point.
-Adam
Germany is actually Deutchland. Greece is actually Hellas. The Sea of Gallilee is actualy the Kinneret. ...
Yet, we all know who/what people are talking of.
Oh well, what the hell...
I think the problem is that even the Taiwanese government considers Taiwan a province of China. The point is that they believe that the Taiwanese government thinks itself the rightful rulers of China, just as the PRC governing party thinks of itself as the rightful ruler of China (including Taiwan).
Groups who want China and Taiwan to suck it up and make politics reflect reality unfortunately don't have control of the Taiwanese government.
And here I was thinking that they'd just check the referrer and make the map say whatever the referrer was hoping for - so if they came from a link in China, it would say that it was a province of China, and if it came from Tawain, it would say it was it's own country.
Personally, I'm in favor of just putting the borders on the map and leaving it blank. Or they could just let the user decide and then set a cookie....
Computer geek for hire. Reasonable rates. Email me.
Yeah, you're full of shit. If you try bullying Taiwan with missiles, you can kiss your already declining economy goodbye. NO country is going to want to have anything to do with you. If you try taking the island by force, you can look forward to getting your ass kicked by the U.S. Navy AND kissing your economy goodbye. You don't have any naval power whatsoever, save for a couple of Sovremnsky class frigates, even your supersonic cruise-missiles can be taken out by the USN's new Aegis systems with Evolved Sea Sparrow, and the PLAAF is nothing but a bunch of old soviet crap piloted by a bunch of unexperienced, shitty pilots, and China's lack of airable land would make feeding your huge population quite difficult without U.S. food imports (take a look at how much food your country imports from the U.S. sometime) so you can look forward to another "Great Leap Forward" style famine if you try to take that route, too. Actually, you're right. If you want to take Taiwan back, you'd better do it as soon as possible. Russia has been experiencing a huge brain-drain ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union, so that "Russian tech" you've been talking about really isn't going to be anything special in the next 20 years, and by the year 2020, HALF of your country's population will be over the age of 65 (take a look at what that did to the Japanese economy, then multiply it by 10 due to your excessive population and lack of infastructure) so you won't have the purchasing power to buy all of that nifty stuff anyway. Better get cracking there, little red soldier.
It's really ironic that Google, being part of the Capitalist herd, will probably not recognize Taiwan's independence in this matter because of the future $$$ potential in China, a Communist country in stark contrast to Capitalism. Capitalism, though it efficiently produces the best at the fastest rate, has no concern for the resources it burns for its achievements nor does it have any concern for things like human rights, morals, and the like. Only money talks with Capitalism, and it will be it's demise. I'm certainly not promoting Communism here. Both systems are fatally flawed.
"[...] they were the Republic of China before the communist rebellion, but they can't claim to be the whole of China anymore."
No, but they are part of China and, therefore, have as much claim to the name as the people on the mainland.
By the way, perhaps you've heard of the Republic of Korea (eg, "South Korea") and the People's Republic of Korea (eg, "North Korea")?
And ya know, that isn't rigorously true. Taiwan was filled with indigenous polynesians until the 1600s, was a Dutch colony for a while after that, was fairly uncontrolled between 1700 and 1800, was a Japanese colony from about 1800-1900, and was independent between 1900 and the start of WWII. Japan occupied it again during the war, and the Allies agreed China would occupy it *temporarily* after the war. Afterwards, of course, the Chinese civil war proceeded, the Kuomintang fled there, and the rest is history.
> it has its own military that prevents China from walking over
And the name of Taiwan's army is "The U.S. Army". The U.S. is the *only* thing that stops China from invading.
The kind that are afraid of 600 nuclear tipped missiles 100 miles off their borders. It's not cowardess, it's sensible.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
> The inclusion of Taiwan with an aggressive power such as China is not exactly good.
Yup, Google has violated their policy here, but they can join the long list of moral weasels on this issue. Fact: Taiwan is a soverign nation entitled to all the privledges and respect that status brings. Fact: For craven reasons mostly related to fear of upsetting trade relations with China almost no nation fully recognizes that fact. Fact: While being part craven in not extending full recognition to Taiwan and not applying the political pressure to get them seated at the UN, the continued existance of Taiwan as an independent nation state is entirely due to US policy.
Democrat delenda est
The Taiwanese culture is quite different from the Mainland Chinese culture. The people of Taiwan deserve credit for their achievement. They should not have their freedom and self-determination taken away by a Chinese government that just wants to be bigger, when it does not manage perfectly what it has already.
You had me until that one. Simply because your "empire" once held that territory does not entitle you to do so indefinitely, particularly considering that both then and now, said occupation is completely against the wishes of the people who actually live there.
Using your logic, we can build about 5 cases for who should legally own Palestine, and we see where that logic gets us.
Your history is also largely incorrect. Tibet was independent between 600 and the start of the Mongol empire, and again from the time the Mongols lost control until the Qing dynasty tried to take over in hostile fashion. They gained some control over Tibet though not central rule, until the British started protecting Tibet. By 1900 the British sold Tibet out to China - again, against the wishes of Tibet - and China took over.
So to sum up, China has not "owned" Tibet any time in the last 1500 years except for the last 50, and has had absolutely no control that was granted by the people of Tibet. That makes China an occupying, illegitimate, oppressive power in Tibet.
Furthermore, and you do not seem to realize this, the Chinese government is not a government of law, it is a government of personality. It is a dictatorship, run by individuals who answer to no voters, or anyone else, for that matter. Since I will assume you do not know Hu Jintao, or Jiang Zemin, you are not qualified to say that China will not launch nukes.
Your understanding and assessment of the situation is incorrect.
On the other hand, it is Tuesday, and if this is a troll, I vote for it as the best I've seen all year.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
Try telling that to my mother, uncle, and aunt who fled from Tibet through the Himalayas because a neighbouring country decided to assert their "rightful authority". My grandfather died in China-Occupied Tibet and my grandmother died shortly after getting out.
Rape, slaughter, famine, and cultural-cleansing are some of the many atrocities Tibetans were subjected to because China decided to assert their "rightful authority". Tibet was an independant country. Sadly, it no longer is. I don't claim Tibet is a country, but strongly incist that it was.
I suggest YOU look up some facts before posting pro-China "crap". Let's start with http://www.tibet.org/why/ and http://www.tibet.com/WhitePaper/
How can you be so misinformed? You should be ashamed of what China did from a humanitarian point of view, regardless of whatever political bias and motivations you may have.
For God's sake man, cut the moral equivalency crap and realize that there is bad and good and these are absolutes. They are not values that are relative to something else and they certainly cannot be excused by saying in essence "heck, everybody does it."
11 million people killed for their ideology....that's evil, pure and simple. That's the evil of a man, drunk with his own power, that feels that the end justifies any means.
11 million individual...with lives, with families, with hopes and dreams. Killed. Because they did not praise "Dear Leader" vociferously enough to please the vicous communist government.
Most of China probably isn't allowed to even view a google.com site... so let the Taiwanese get their way! :)
Wow, you are so wrong and misguided it isn't even funny. The Korean War was fought because the UN (read USA) forces were encroaching far too close to our borders; in fact some border towns on our side were bombed. We had no choice but to intervene given the circumstances of the UN invasion of North Korea. The UN was there to overturn the communist government, and were essentially encroaching on our borders; who knew if they would push their advantage into China or not?
Well sense that wasn't the purpose for the war, it would seem that would be a remote possibility. Mao, wanting his own satelite states like Stalin, decided to jump into the war to protect North Korea after they were being routed after starting a war of aggression in June 25, 1950.
Several US generals were certainly in favor of it; of course this is not what actually happened but hindsight is almost 20/20.
You apparently don't know that the military is under civilian command in the United States. The army can whine all they want, but they're ultimately powerless, There were always those that wanted to continue wars to remove potential threats. Patton wanting to continue World War II against the Soviet Union for one, but they never have much clout.
The war against India was not imperialistic at all; it was a border dispute that India was getting too agressive about; we attacked them, taught them a lesson, and backed out. If we were so imperialistic, why don't we hold any Indian territory today? In fact those same territories that were under dispute then are still under dispute now.
Well given that China is still in disputed territory, one could argue that China is holding Indian territory today.
In classical ethics, there are a few actions that are intrinsically evil, among them, lying. The trouble with lying is that it consists not only of the selection of some arbitrary symbols, but a selection which intentionally misleads the person begin lied to. There seems always to have been a distinction between the explicit lie and the tacit one: early Roman Christians were content not to disabuse their fellow citizens of the Christians' (non-)pagan status unless specifically challenged. Otherwise, the Roman eradication would have been rather more complete.
With a published work such as Google, the issue is complicated by the many audiences. Who is Google's audience? Me? I don't feel lied to when I see "province of China" plastered over Taiwan, because I am aware of the situation and expect to be notified of a regime change by CNN, not Google.
What about the larger U.S. public? Due to our pathetic world geography education, those folks may be deceived. But the degree of deception is tempered by the overwhelming apathy of that audience.
Most of the rest of the Google audience is better educated, and not deceived. Certainly the Taiwanese are not deceived. I've been assured that the mainland Chinese are also aware of their government's pervasive influence on the media -- though not all, evidently: see the dogmatic statements on Korea earlier in this discussion.
That last minority is a troubling one: those who want to believe the lie (N.B.: I am not disputing the claims concerning Korean history above; it's just that I have no means to judge the source's credibility). Another example: those religious fanatics who insist that sexual preference is always a matter of choice. But one may defend the "misleading" publication that lends them support by casting the responsibility back on them: they could find the truth if they wanted to find it. Thus the misrepresentation is found in the intent of the reader, not the publisher.
Google is making a judgement that the good they bring overwhelms the transparent deceptions in which they must participate to bring it. Perhaps they're wrong. Those without sin will certainly continue to cast stones.
You tried to make China sound like a nice place to vacation. Stand and defend your comments like you've got a brain instead of falling back on the shopworn "Oh, yeah. Well the US has done some bad things too you know." Such an argument is pathetic and weak and tends to indicate that you have not thought your position thru and instead get your talking points from some leftist website.
Again, stand and defend your position like a man.
"The Korean War was fought because the UN (read USA) forces were encroaching far too close to our borders;"
The Korean War was fought because forces from the DPRK crossed the 38th Parallel.
"The UN was there to overturn the communist government, and were essentially encroaching on our borders;
Considering that DPRK forces initially almost pushed UN forces off of the penninsula entirely before being pushed back north (points north, like Seoul, were ravaged), I'd lay the blame on the DPRK for putting the stakes that high.
"who knew if they would push their advantage into China or not?"
So the Chinese withdrew from the war after Truman fired MacArthur?
"And there was never a war in Tibet, we went there to reinstate our rightful authority there given the fact that Tibet was a province of China under the Empire, and since the PRC is a successor state i.e. is in a chain of replacement governemnts of the Empire, the PRC is legally in control of Tibet."
And there was never a war in Canada, we went there to reinstate our rightful authority there given the fact that Canada was a holding of Great Britain under the Empire, was invited to join the Declaration of Inedependence, and since the USA is a successor state i.e. is in a chain of replacement governments of British North America (colonial governments to the Articles of Confederation to the Constitution of 1789), the USA is legally in control of Canada.
This is a direct quote from a letter from Joseph Martinez, the Secretary for the ISO 3166 Maintainece Agency sent May 6, 2005.
"ISO 3166 does not set out to establish the name of countries, territories, or area of geographical interest."
ISO 3166 simply sets the code, not the names. Therefore going by ISO standard simply means that TW, TWN, 158 are the codes for Taiwan, as listed here.
I found that marking my mail "Taiwan" -- no ROC, no China, nothing other than just "Taiwan" -- was the surest way to get the mail through.
I think the US post office officially requires mail to Taiwan to be labeled "ROC", but that clearly doesn't work, and isn't even their de facto preference.
Ambiguity, strategic ambiguity, is the way to go here.
As for e-mail, well, the US isn't in charge of the group who decided on .tw. If the US had been in charge, we'd probably have some weird thing like .rc.o for Mainland and .rc.p for Taiwan.