Taiwan, Province of China (Google Maps says)

Politics Taiwan Politics
1

Google Maps says Taiwan is a province of China.

But Taiwan not a province of China, TSU tells Google

The Taipei Times is reporting, also the Chinoise Posse, er, Post:

taipeitimes.com/News/front/a … 2003274363

The Taiwan Solidarity Union legislative caucus called on the public to write to Google to protest its listing of Taiwan as a “province of China” on its Google Maps service.

In addition to sending its own letter of protest to the US search-engine giant, the caucus asked the government to lodge a formal protest and request Google to clearly define Taiwan as “an independent state.”

Those forumosan.commers interested in lodging an online complaint with Google can go to google.com/support/maps/bin/request.py.

maps.google.com/

type in Taiwan into the search window here and you will see.

Way to go google. Giggle. Wriggle out of this one, Brin!

2

I prefer to use Google Earth, which btw lists Taiwan as just that, Taiwan.

3

In another sizzling cold embarrassment, the state of Alaska website, which is run by Governor Frank Murkowski there, longtime friend of Taiwan and close personal friend of Chen Shui-bian also lists Taiwan as “Taiwan Province, Taiwan” in its list of sister cities. If even Taiwan’s friends can’t get it right, how can we expect Google to know the diff?

gov.state.ak.us/trade/sister_states.php

Alaska’s Sister States & Sister Cities:

Sister States/Provinces
Heilongjiang Province, China
Khabarovsk Region, Russia
*Taiwan Province, Taiwan

4

They should also write to the people who make the numberplates for cars here. They either say “Taipei City” or “Taiwan Province”.

5

Good point, miranda. With the DPP in power for over 4 years now, and the govt here still uses license plates that read TAIWAN PROVINCE, it is a sin! How can they continue to do that? If anyone here does not believe what Miranda said, go out and look at the scooters near your office. They all say TAIWAN PROVINCE in Chinese. What gives? Back in the KMT days, sure, but this is the DPP era and the policy has not been changed. Chew on that MOFA!

6

i agree…until taiwan actually gets in the mainlands face and deletes all references to china and taiwan province here…they don’t really have that many legs to stand on…

7

Oh cry me a river.

ROC is China.

Look here is the admendment to the ROC constitution

[quote]Article 9. The system of self-government in the provinces and counties shall include the following provisions, which shall be established by the enactment of appropriate laws, the restrictions in Article 108, Paragraph 1, Item 1; Article 109; Article 112, 113, 114, 115; and Article 122 of the Constitution notwithstanding:

A province shall have a provincial government of nine members, one of whom shall be the provincial governor. All members shall be nominated by the president of the Executive Yuan and appointed by the president of the Republic.
A province shall have a provincial advisory council made up of a number of members who shall be nominated by the president of the Executive Yuan and appointed by the president of the Republic.
A county shall have a county council, members of which shall be elected by the people of the said county.
The legislative powers vested in a county shall be exercised by the county council of the said county.
A county shall have a county government headed by a county magistrate who shall be elected by the people of the said county.
The relationship between the central government and the provincial and county governments.
A province shall execute the orders of the Executive Yuan and supervise matters governed by the counties.
The terms of office of the members of the Tenth Taiwan Provincial Assembly and of the first elected governor of Taiwan Province shall end on December 20, 1998. Elections for members of the Taiwan Provincial Assembly and for the governor of Taiwan Province shall be suspended following the conclusion of the terms of office of the members of the Tenth Taiwan Provincial Assembly and of the first elected governor of Taiwan Province.

Following the suspension of elections for members of the Taiwan Provincial Assembly and for the governor of Taiwan Province, modifications of the functions, operations, and organization of the Taiwan Provincial Government may be specified by law. [/quote]

The offices are suspended, but they never dissolved the provincial structure, including Taiwan.

Ergo, Taiwan is still a province in ROC (ie China).

8

[quote=“ac_dropout”]Oh cry me a river.

ROC is China.

Look here is the admendment to the ROC constitution

[quote]Article 9. The system of self-government in the provinces and counties shall include the following provisions, which shall be established by the enactment of appropriate laws, the restrictions in Article 108, Paragraph 1, Item 1; Article 109; Article 112, 113, 114, 115; and Article 122 of the Constitution notwithstanding:

A province shall have a provincial government of nine members, one of whom shall be the provincial governor. All members shall be nominated by the president of the Executive Yuan and appointed by the president of the Republic.
A province shall have a provincial advisory council made up of a number of members who shall be nominated by the president of the Executive Yuan and appointed by the president of the Republic.
A county shall have a county council, members of which shall be elected by the people of the said county.
The legislative powers vested in a county shall be exercised by the county council of the said county.
A county shall have a county government headed by a county magistrate who shall be elected by the people of the said county.
The relationship between the central government and the provincial and county governments.
A province shall execute the orders of the Executive Yuan and supervise matters governed by the counties.
The terms of office of the members of the Tenth Taiwan Provincial Assembly and of the first elected governor of Taiwan Province shall end on December 20, 1998. Elections for members of the Taiwan Provincial Assembly and for the governor of Taiwan Province shall be suspended following the conclusion of the terms of office of the members of the Tenth Taiwan Provincial Assembly and of the first elected governor of Taiwan Province.

Following the suspension of elections for members of the Taiwan Provincial Assembly and for the governor of Taiwan Province, modifications of the functions, operations, and organization of the Taiwan Provincial Government may be specified by law. [/quote]

The offices are suspended, but they never dissolved the provincial structure, including Taiwan.

Ergo, Taiwan is still a province in ROC (ie China).[/quote]

Taiwan is not part of China because the ROC does not exist. The ROC died in 1949 when it illegally occupied our nation.

9

[quote=“BlueGreen”][quote=“ac_dropout”]Oh cry me a river.

ROC is China.

Look here is the admendment to the ROC constitution

[quote]Article 9. The system of self-government in the provinces and counties shall include the following provisions, which shall be established by the enactment of appropriate laws, the restrictions in Article 108, Paragraph 1, Item 1; Article 109; Article 112, 113, 114, 115; and Article 122 of the Constitution notwithstanding:

A province shall have a provincial government of nine members, one of whom shall be the provincial governor. All members shall be nominated by the president of the Executive Yuan and appointed by the president of the Republic.
A province shall have a provincial advisory council made up of a number of members who shall be nominated by the president of the Executive Yuan and appointed by the president of the Republic.
A county shall have a county council, members of which shall be elected by the people of the said county.
The legislative powers vested in a county shall be exercised by the county council of the said county.
A county shall have a county government headed by a county magistrate who shall be elected by the people of the said county.
The relationship between the central government and the provincial and county governments.
A province shall execute the orders of the Executive Yuan and supervise matters governed by the counties.
The terms of office of the members of the Tenth Taiwan Provincial Assembly and of the first elected governor of Taiwan Province shall end on December 20, 1998. Elections for members of the Taiwan Provincial Assembly and for the governor of Taiwan Province shall be suspended following the conclusion of the terms of office of the members of the Tenth Taiwan Provincial Assembly and of the first elected governor of Taiwan Province.

Following the suspension of elections for members of the Taiwan Provincial Assembly and for the governor of Taiwan Province, modifications of the functions, operations, and organization of the Taiwan Provincial Government may be specified by law. [/quote]

The offices are suspended, but they never dissolved the provincial structure, including Taiwan.

Ergo, Taiwan is still a province in ROC (ie China).[/quote]

Taiwan is not part of China because the ROC does not exist. The ROC died in 1949 when it illegally occupied our nation.[/quote]
Then please tell your legislator if you are Taiwanese. Tell him you are ready to join an all professional military if you’re an able bodied male, and that you’re willing to do real reserve duty for 8 years after your active stint. Tell him you’re ready to keep a loaded gun under your bed. Tell him you are ready to pay higher taxes to support massive increases in military expenditure, and by massive, I mean stuff that would make the Kidd class destroyers and the controversial arms package look like the brass’s monthly dry cleaning bill. Tell your legislator that you are ready to go straight to war just so you can have that name change. Tell him that you’re ready to send your son or sons off to fight and perhaps die just so you can change that piece of ROC law that calls Taiwan a province. Do the names “ROC” and “Taiwan Province” seem a bit of a mismatch with reality? Sure. But the only way those names are going to change is if a large majority of Taiwanese are ready to risk death for them and theirs. If they’re not ready to do that, then why should I entertain them with labels for their homeland that they themselves have not collectively chosen to put in their own laws?

10

Jive,

Watching the daily news in Taiwan, everyone knows Taiwan is USA first and foremost interest. The majority of Taiwanese are convinced USA will come to their rescue no matter what.

I mean the Chinese subtitles under the assistant-assistant-of-the-assistant-deputy-secretary-of-waste-management at the, all important and all official, AIT says USA cares about Taiwan. It must be true, right.

Pres. Bush once referred to Taiwan as Republic of Taiwan, so it all must be true.

I wonder what Yahoo has to say about this?

11

From the British tech news/humor site

Taiwan huffs and puffs at Google Earth
We’re a country, godammit
By Lester Haines
Published Tuesday 4th October 2005 12:49 GMT

Taiwan has become the latest, er, country to go whining to Google Earth - not because the entertaining online service reveals high-res pics of air bases packed with black helicopters, but because those tiresome Americans insist on calling it “a province of China”.

Oh dear, oh dear. A suitably indignant Taiwanese government has therefore asked Google to correct the outrage to read the Republic of Taiwan - despite the fact that, as Reuters notes, the island of 23 million souls is “recognised by only 26 states in the world and has no seat at the United Nations”.

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.

No doubt good sense will prevail, with Google siding firmly with Beijing and threatening to invade Taiwan if it attempts to declare itself a sovereign state while taking the intermediate measure of downgrading all existing satellite images of the island to “developing world lo-res” - a fate reserved for only the mostly lowly of nations/provinces* (delete according to political taste).

12

Just keep telling yourself that and maybe someone will notice!

When does a leader of a country need to tell the whole world that they really are a “country”?!

I guess if you lie to yourself long enough you start to believe it. Or maybe it just makes you feel better.

Either way it is kind of funny!

13

“A suitably indignant Taiwanese government has therefore asked Google to correct the outrage to read the Republic of Taiwan”…

no way did joe chen say this…the words republic of taiwan have never issued from the lips or the keyboard of any government official…even for the dpp it is practically a seditious act to say this. maybe they said republic of china?

14

Good point, miranda. With the DPP in power for over 4 years now, and the govt here still uses license plates that read TAIWAN PROVINCE, it is a sin! How can they continue to do that? If anyone here does not believe what Miranda said, go out and look at the scooters near your office. They all say TAIWAN PROVINCE in Chinese. What gives? Back in the KMT days, sure, but this is the DPP era and the policy has not been changed. Chew on that MOFA![/quote]
I always assumed that new plates now say Taipei City (or wherever), and it’s only the older plates which say Taiwan province (in other words they stopped using Taiwan province on plates several years ago, but of course noone is going to get a new plate for their scooter so there are still loads of old plates about). Am I wrong? What happens when you buy a new scooter?

Incidentally, this story also made it onto Slashdot:
politics.slashdot.org/article.pl … 04&tid=217

15

I wrote this on a weblog, but it applies on forumosa too:

Taiwan is not a province of “China” because there is no such country as “China” just as there is no such country as “America.” (I correct people who call the USA that quite often.) Taiwan is caught in conflicting claims between two countries. One is the “People’s Republic of China.” The other is the “Republic of China.” The problem with the “one China” myth is that there actually ARE TWO separate countries that have the name “China” in their name…one of whom refuses the right of the other to exist.

The point of this is that Google was not exactly correct in stating that Taiwan is a province of China…because a concrete “China” exists no more than “France” does (the latter being la Republique Francaise in actuality). To be perfectly correct, they would have to say that Taiwan is a province disputed between two countries, the Republic of China and the People’s Republic of China. There is nothing wrong with such reasoning. For example, Berlin was once spit between two countries, the “German Democratic Republic” and the “Federal Republic of Germany.”

So if it personally floats your boat to say that “Taiwan is a part of China, blah, blah, blah” go ahead. And if you want to say the TSU was wrong in their claim, go ahead. Or if you want to say Taiwan Province IS the ROC so ROC=Taiwan, so Google should have independently referred to the island, that’s fine too. But, regardless, Google HAS made a mistake. They just have not exactly made the mistake the TSU accused them of.

16

So when you go to Google maps and type in ‘Paris’, and it responds with ‘Paris, France’ you think that’s wrong as well? Seems an odd argument to me.
maps.google.com/maps?q=paris&t=k&hl=en

17

Taipei City and Kaohsiung City, being special “provincial-level” administrations, have their own motor registry authorities. Everywhere else is “Taiwan Province”, as a residue of the days when the Taiwan Provincial Government was in charge. It may seem quaint, but technically it still makes sense when you visit Kinmen and Matsu, where (I expect) the plates say “Fuchien Province”.

The alternative is to assign cities/counties the right to issue number plates, which would no doubt annoy people in those cities/counties who take the chance to raise fees to fill local coffers.

As far as symbolism goes, this is something you might have expected the DPP to change as soon as possible after 2000. But they didn’t. And there are far more symbolically powerful things demanding attention that they also haven’t touched. So don’t hold your breath.

18

Google Says its Taiwan Description Consistent With Policy

Oct. 5 (Bloomberg) – Google Inc., the most-used Internet search engine, said its description of Taiwan as a province of China is consistent with international naming conventions such as those followed by the United Nations.

Google faces protests from Taiwan’s government because of the description, which is used on its map service. The island’s foreign ministry has instructed its U.S. representative office to ask Google to correct the listing, said David Wang, a deputy- director general at the ministry in Taipei.

``We rely on international naming conventions to find a consistent policy,’’ said Debbie Frost, a spokeswoman for the Mountain View, California-based company. Frost declined to comment on whether Google would consider changing the items.

Google doesn’t yet have any operations in China but plans to open a research center in Beijing soon, Frost said.

Taiwan has repeatedly sought entry to the United Nations, which recognizes China’s sovereignty over the island. China, which has diplomatic ties with far more countries than Taiwan, considers the island a renegade province that must be reunited with the mainland, by force if necessary.

``We hope Google will respect the fact that Taiwan is an independent state and not a province of China,’’ Wang said.

In truth, when Google uploaded maps of China, it wrote Taiwan, Province of China; then changed it when an individual complained a while back; but soon changed it back.

19

That’s because there is only a small minority of people on Taiwan that believes the provincial government of Taiwan doesn’t exist.

What people should be fighting for is for google.com to list the entry as “Taiwan, Republic of China.” There is more documentation to support this naming convention. Although you’ll have a fight with PRC over internationalizing of ROC agian at google, which is probably why ROC is not mentioned on the map in the first place.

20

Google’s attempt to curry favour with China is slightly pathetic. Does the corresponding label for Fujian say “Fujian, Province of China”?

Where is this on Google Earth? Mine just says “Taiwan”.

Great isn’t it though that the government has so little to do with its time that it worries about stuff like this.