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."

Comments

Claim is it someone else's issue

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Simple solution

[KiloByte]

"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"?

Re:google aren't the only one

[jiawen]

Why doesn't Taiwan have a seat in the UN? Because China, the US and the other countries won't let it.

If the school bully says you have to say "uncle", that doesn't mean he's suddenly your real uncle...

Why are they bugging Google about this?

[squirrelist]

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).

Re:Ditto Tibet

[amerinese]

but Tibet doesn't actually exercise de facto indepedence, i.e. where is there elected or legitimate government and their army/police? it's not that the PRC can roll into Tibet any time--it's that they're already there and the ones really in charge. as to the PRC's legitimacy--that's a separate question entirely.

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).

Re:Simple..

[h4rm0ny]

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.

Re:Simple solution

[macgeek]

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....

Re:Simple solution

[Mr. Underbridge]

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.

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.

Re:Simple solution

[Stargoat]

China has outraged the world before. They will do so again. The Taiwanese are right to fear a country that has killed more of its own citizens in a one year period than are on the entire island of Taiwan. China has been spending years informing its citizenry that it is better to destroy Taiwan than let it go free. The people of Taiwan are much more familar with this than you are.

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.

Re:Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

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. So what you're saying is basically the equivalent of saying that China can't send troops to its own territory.

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.