Na maybe now, but remember when China was seen as political. People just wanted to avoid stating any political bias to avoid argument.
But think now 中國 is neutral
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Perhaps not so neutral. 中國 is just 中國 . Taiwan is just taiwan. Saying nothing more is neutral. I would think modern day neutral depends on who is the audience, unfortunately . 中國 insists taiwan bending over and applying china to their name (roc). Taiwan is neutral in just not declaring independence but calling itself taiwan. Neutrality has yet to happen. I t hink people are just trying to avoid discussing things (鴕鳥) which usually doesnt end well for the short side of the stick. Taiwans lack lustre fight is understandable, but a bit sad at the same time. For me ,the fact the international world chooses quick money over ethics is the core of the problem. not just about taiwan but much of chinas vast human rights abuses. It would be different if the world just didnt support them for their crimes against humanity . But to literally enbale an pay them, and make them integral parts of internaional organitoons for peace and rights, is a tad bit past ridiculous. Its understandable to me people want to call them their country name and not contribute to ccp styled propaganda that is 100% aimed at hurting them long term.
I’ve heard 大陸 from both the most extreme green and the most extreme blue in terms of the political spectrum. The distinction is clearly that when using the term 大陸 you are referring to the landmass that is called “China,” which in every single conversation that I’ve had, has, to the best of my knowledge, excluded Taiwan as an independent nation.
Frankly speaking, prejudice against the wording of either the delicious 大陸妹 or delicious 台灣妹 and boycotting restaurants according to their wording is the epitome of idiocy. That’s all I have to say about that.
Funny(?) story: first job in Taiwan (Tainan), I didn’t know that I was working for deep Blue bosses. I did show up to some rallies to get some free swag (i.e. 連宋 rallies). Wore my red KMT jacket and hat with pride, goaded on by my bosses. I did notice that my supervisor was always talking about how things were done by “men in China,” which was simply my misinterpretation of his attempt to say " Mainland China." In fact, it took me an embarrassingly long time to figure this out.
So, 阿扁 is shot and my boss is telling me not to wear my KMT gear anymore. One of my students’ parents was the lead surgeon who removed the bullet from 阿扁, and claimed that it was a self-inflicted wound or setup.
While I’m not willing to divulge my personal political beliefs, I am far more to the green end of the spectrum at this point in my life. That being said, I’ve known deep green and deep blue to both refer to “Mainland China” and to use his term, either in positive or negative connotations, to indicate a place and culture different from the island/nation of Taiwan.
Based on the original post, regarding the app for learning Mandarin (國語，普通話， whatever), I see absolutely no need to fight over politics or perceived political implications. The developer simply wanted to offer two options, one which was suitable to people speaking Mandarin in Taiwan, and the other for people speaking Mandarin in most parts of China. Would PRC Chinese be a more suitable title? Not really, since there are many more dialects that could not possibly be covered. Heck, even in Taiwan what about Hakka? The designers of the app seem to be quite pragmatic. My analysis is as follows:
- If you prefer to learn Taiwanese Mandarin, choose that option.
- If you’re a pinko commie then the Mainland China option should cause you no distress.
What an agonizing and fruitless debate over something that is of no importance whatsoever in the context of a language learning app!
Consider the following two options for learning the English language:
- Standard American English Pronunciation
- Ebonics
- strong adherence to one or the other would likely result in considering the alternative to be, to a degree, either offensive or inappropriate.
- the point is, from the standpoint of an app designer, that you need to give the customer a choice. Given the market is designed to address both Taiwanese and Chinese/262 customers, then it makes no sense to take a strongly political stance on either direction.
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Good points. Is there a debate though? If one supports taiwan use country names: china or taiwan. If one doesnt support taiwan, use ther ccp friendly terms until they are not enough. i think most are fairly clear on that.
Sorry, didnt read this was about an app. Just saying in general its good not to play into ccp long term narratives. Though if one agrees with their system, at least they arent being disingenuous… Generally speaking. Havent even seen this as a debate outside of pro china folks. But ironically deep green still do (probably unknowingly) use ccp talking points. My avatar i made after talking to a super extreme dpp friend. Beyond just basic rights and independence. The conversation was about kmt and i asked her why people like them but dont like china. we shrugged and no idea why that would logically be the case, at least post Ma. I showed her the kmt website and she was shocked. 62 years old and didnt even notice the red circle now in my avatar. Its all over the politicians signs as well. Some people are just trying so hard to avoid confronting reality, it makes things nearly innevitable.
Taiwan now and decades previous are no longer the same. Without missles pointed at our heads ,this would be official.
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I haven’t reached the 22 years of residence (respect for that) but honestly so far I had the same experience as @keoni mentioned. My friends (20s-30s) are either moderate green, deep green or hardliner taidu but only the taidu group, and not even all, say “China”. When I start teasing about it, they all admit that they say “Mainland” unintentionally as a habit, probably a leftover of 40 years of KMT propaganda like @Marco wrote. A bit like Italian atheists saying “thank God” 
As far as the language is concerned, I personally try to be flexible depending on whom I am talking to. Taiwanese would call it zhongwen, HKers and PRCs putonghua and Singaporeans/Malaysians huayu.
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Being an adult, I like being able to choose the words I use. I don’t like it when somebody tells me what words I should and shouldn’t use, except in the cases of truly defamatory words, and in certain settings, words that are generally thought to be extremely obscene. There may be some other cases, but the words under discussion don’t seem to fit any sort of description that suggests they should be forbidden, notwithstanding someone’s having characterized the use of the word mainland as “delusional” and “political.”
That having been said, I don’t want to suggest that you’re not free to speak your mind. I wouldn’t for the world want to seem to dissuade you from expressing your opinion, even if your opinion seems to imply that the issue of freedom of speech is a waste of time, and that therefore, for the sake of using my time more wisely, I should let others choose the words that I use.
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Then there was the shopkeeper in Tainan who sarcastically complimented me on my very good beijing hua
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I guess it was to keep the peace–or maybe to dispose of the issue?–that both Chen Shui-bian and Tsai Ing-wen tipped the hat to the name “the Republic of China”:
I like what you did there and I try to do it myself. Choose words wisely.
No, I am not implying that the issue of freedom of speech is a waste of time. Just in this particular case, I feel that the use of “大陸” and its English translation of “mainland” is not as problematic as some posters here might suggest. In my three decades in Taiwan, I have never felt that it’s a politically charged term the usage of which has to be done with some extra consideration and carefulness. To me it’s just how China is referred to by most people here. I don’t socialize a lot so that might be the reason why I might be out of touch, not knowing what’s going on. But to be honest, the only place where I have witnessed people discussing this is here.
Perhaps it’s the English term “mainland” that is more problematic than the Chinese “大陸”. “Mainland” suggests that, in this case, Taiwan is a minor component of that mainland, whereas in 大陸, which can also be translated as “continent” there is not necessarily such a relation implied. To me it can be seen merely as a reference to the geographical location as in the “Chinese living on the continent”.
By waste of time I mean that these type of discussions will most likely have no meaningful outcome. It’s on the far fringes of things that matter, at least to me.
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I apologize for my overreaction.
I agree with your above statement, but when I read the “no meaningful outcome” part, it got me to wondering how many threads on Forumosa have meaningful outcomes. 
I don’t want to be unfair. I guess quite a few of them do. Still, I’ve also seen quite a few that led me to conclude, “Well, that was a thread. A discussion thread. On Forumosa. About, uh, the kind of stuff we discuss on Forumosa.” Which I guess could be said to be meaningful. I guess.
Anyway, I’ve decided to avoid the “M” word (or the “D” word in Romanized Chinese) in the future, to keep the peace. Just PRC and Taiwan from now on. And I hope I can remember that.
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All people who speak Chinese refer to it as zhongwen, meaning ‘Chinese cultural language’, and including the written language and literature. The spoken language is derived from Beijing dialect. Spoken Mandarin is referred to in Taiwan as guoyu (national (spoken) language), and putonghua (common speech) in China. Schoolchildren in Taiwan learn zhongwen, as it includes guoyu, written Chinese, and Chinese literature, just like the subject taught in English-speaking countries as ‘English’.
‘English’ can refer to yingyu (British spoken English), meiyu (American spoken English), or yingwen (written English/English literature). _
Judging by @RickRoll and your testimony, it’s pretty clear the CCP and the KMT are the arbiter of your words.
Talk about taking someone out of context with all those reductions.
You are the one who brought up the French mainland translation, when it’s obvious that it’d be translated to 本土 instead of 大陸. I’m arguing on the basis of linguistic fact and simple logic that the KMT is forcing the use of 大陸 to be used as mainland only in the instance of talking about China, while all other uses of mainland would use a more natural word choice, 本土.
If you chooses to ignore that logical disconnect, it’s your prerogative. The ending to the post that you were replying to made it pretty clear that all I would do is ask you “which continent?”
Also, 大陸 is obviously picked with a political motive because that was never how China mainland was referred to prior to KMT’s exile. 大陸 is a Wasei Kango, created by the Japanese to translate the European concept of continents. The only references of the characters 大陸 prior to the Japanese created this world after Meji restoration in Chinese sources are to a lake called 大陸澤 in Hebei, which no longer exists today.
While the usage of 本土 can be found from the Book of Song
宋書 卷二 ‧ 本紀第二 武帝中
七年正月己未，振旅于京師。改授大將軍、揚州牧，給班劔二十人，本官悉如故，固辭。凡南北征伐戰亡者，竝列上賻贈。尸喪未反，遣主帥迎接，致還本土。
There are more usage 本土 in historic books, some as old as the Record of Three Kingdoms.
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By that logic:
“Where are you from?”
“From the States.”
“Which States?”
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That’s a fairly common response already.
People do actually want to know which state and they’ll tell you.
No, not which state of the States, but which group of states.
Just say Taiwan to postal purgatory.
Not many countries are composed of states, and none of them (except the U.S.) are known as “the States.”
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Fair enough, but how many countries are referred to as “dalu”? I don’t think there is a need for clarification either, or is there?
Oh, no, now I am starting to post in this thread after calling it a waste of time…
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None? Mainland China isn’t a country. 
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Should have offered to help him pronounce his words better.