Maybe this one belongs in the ‘pet peeves’ thread, but here it is:
I am completely sick of websites which ask you to select your country from a list and give this ridiculous option for Taiwan residents. Whatever your opinion on Taiwan’s status, it’s a real country (according to Frank Zappa’s definition, anyway) and it’s entitled to at least choose it’s own name, which to most people is simply “Taiwan”, with no political overtones. AFAIK not even the Chinese Communist Party refers to us as “Taiwan, Province of China” (I imagine they try not to talk about us at all). So why the hell does every english-speaking website use this stupid phrase? Where are they getting their country list from?
I’m not even talking about government websites. Only a few governments worldwide officially accept the ‘One China’ policy anyway. It’s all and sundry. 50% of the time, I email and complain; so far the only positive response I got was from a Canadian government department. The others don’t even respond.
I even had one Website simply change my free-text location (Taiwan) into “China”. I whinged and they changed it to (surprise!) “Taiwan, Province of China”.
What can we do about annexation by craven foreign consent? It’s really starting to piss me off.
What can you do? Write a polite letter to the merchant, explaining that the listing is inappropriate as it takes the side of China’s aggressive claim toward the de facto independent, democratic nation of Taiwan, and that it should be changed to simply “Taiwan”. I have done this many times, and at least half of them agree to change it, in which case, they get my continued business.
[quote=“conta”]official name for Taiwan is Republic of China, right?
and People’s Republic of China is the mainland right?[/quote]
Guess you’re right.
And unofficially Taiwan is its own country with its own constitution, currency, army and laws.
So you can dug and bow or show some civil courage even if your site won’t be anywhere to find on Baidu.
Most companies have barely heard of Taiwan, let alone give serious thought to which name should be used for it. The prevalence of “Taiwan, Province of China” is down to its inclusion on the ISO list as such - many pre-made “country selector” modules for websites use this list. So if you want it changed, write to ISO. Good luck with that.
Aha … thanks Taffy, that’s what I was trying to find out! My point was, I can’t be bothered to keep writing snotty emails to individual websites, especially if they don’t take any notice. Obviously, everyone is referring to the same country list (or even the same code/scripts). I just had no idea where that was coming from.
Apparently ISO do listen to people … most ISO standards are formalizations of ad-hoc consensus. Unfortunately, they’re basically American, which means they have to do whatever China says to ensure the continued flow of underpriced tat into the USA. So in this particular case, maybe I’d just be better off waiting until there’s a cold spell in Hades before I write to ISO.
[quote]FAQs - Answers to questions relating to codes and names of specific countries
Why is Taiwan named Taiwan Province of China in ISO 3166-1?
The names in ISO 3166-1 - and thus on our Webpage - are taken from United Nations sources. These sources are authoritative inputs to the international country code standard. They are:
The United Nations Bulletin Country Names
Country and Region Codes for Statistical Use of the United Nations Statistics Division
Since Taiwan is not a UN member it does not figure in the UN bulletin on country names. The printed edition of the publication Country and region codes for statistical use gives the name we use in ISO 3166-1. By adhering to UN sources the ISO 3166/MA stays politically neutral.[/quote]
It’s the top question listed in that section. Guess they get mithered about it.
The “Province of China” thing got was mistakenly set up in our company’s relaunched intra-net.
Basically a lot of work got halted here because some people refused to sign up to it. I spent a couple of frantic phone calls to some of our IT guys in South Africa explaining to them the difference.
I recently got Lonely Planet’s online store to change. They weren’t even aware of it and considering it is company policy to recognize Taiwan as a country all I had to do was point the anomaly out.
In both the Republic of China and the People’s Republic of China, isn’t Taiwan a province of China? Why should the rest of the world, either in terms of foreign governments or businesses, go out of its way to say otherwise, unless out of ideological insistence or because they wish to cater to a set of Taiwanese customers rather than to Chinese customers?
The situation may be ridiculous; it may be unjust, unfair, undemocratic, etc, but that’s the way it is. If you really want to find somebody to get ticked off at, then I suggest the people who are doing everything they can to prevent the Taiwanese people from deciding whether or not Taiwan should be an independent country. They are very near at hand, but in the end the Taiwanese can fight their own battles, and when they think the situation is absolutely intolerable, like in Egypt, they just will. From what I can tell, in the years when the nominally pro-independence DPP was in power, it more or less threw its hands up and focused on profiting off of its principles. When Shi Mingde protested against this, he got ridiculed for being a shill, a whore, and/or a drama queen. And, the greens are just shocked that a relatively clean candidate (this is Taiwan after all) from the KMT got elected to the presidency. Their solution to that problem was to present an uncharismatic, but uncorrupt (and with an 18% preferential interest rate, why bother?) bore.
In the meantime, I think that the notion that ‘Taiwan is a country’ is a bit propagandistic, since it is simply untrue (so far). I don’t think the Taiwanese have earned the right to call themselves a country yet. They’ve earned democracy and autonomy, but not that, and in this world, you have to earn it.
The wave of inflation making its way across the world may provide an opportunity to get the Taiwanese people motivated about the question again and put those who consider themselves a part of “Greater China” under pressure, but as a foreigner, I don’t see much reason to get too excited about it until the locals do.
As a casual observer, the difference is what’s on paper or what’s happening on the ground. Each country has their own passports, their own currencies, their own military and their own political systems. They have their own laws, their own tax structures their own health care systems and their own education systems. I need one visa to enter Taiwan and a different visa to enter China. They are in practice, if not on paper, separate countries.
The ONLY reason it’s not been put on paper is because everyone is terrified of China, not because anyone really believes they are one and the same. There is indeed only 1 China, and it’s the PRC. The ROC lost. Taiwan is Taiwan, and to continue this fantasy that the ROC is like a government in exile is delusional.
Go ahead and flame me and bury me with historical facts and figures, but just considering what’s happening in reality today, they are two unique countries.
I see it the other way around. The simple listing of “Taiwan” is clear to all, regardless of one’s belief on the matter of Taiwan’s statehood. What’s going out of the way is adding “province of China”. As others have stated, these websites are just using existing code modules based on the ISO standard, which undoubtedly had the gentle hand of the PRC behind its compilation.
I see it the other way around. The simple listing of “Taiwan” is clear to all, regardless of one’s belief on the matter of Taiwan’s statehood. What’s going out of the way is adding “province of China”. As others have stated, these websites are just using existing code modules based on the ISO standard, which undoubtedly had the gentle hand of the PRC behind its compilation.[/quote]
That’s a good point. I don’t know how the listing evolved, but I wonder or suspect that up until relatively recently (the last twenty years?), that Taiwan would have been listed as China or Republic of China and that “Taiwan” was the portion that was added afterwards in response to differentiate it from mainland China, and that the bit about it being a province was done by way of compromise. I am sure somebody reading this thread could straighten me out on that point, but I still think the objection to Taiwan being referred to as a “province” is fair on any number of levels, except on the level of fact.[quote=“CraigTPE”][quote=“Herodotus”]In the meantime, I think that the notion that ‘Taiwan is a country’ is a bit propagandistic, since it is simply untrue (so far). I don’t think the Taiwanese have earned the right to call themselves a country yet. They’ve earned democracy and autonomy, but not that, and in this world, you have to earn it.
[/quote]
See, now this sounds like propaganda to me.
As a casual observer, the difference is what’s on paper or what’s happening on the ground. Each country has their own passports, their own currencies, their own military and their own political systems. They have their own laws, their own tax structures their own health care systems and their own education systems. I need one visa to enter Taiwan and a different visa to enter China. They are in practice, if not on paper, separate countries.
The ONLY reason it’s not been put on paper is because everyone is terrified of China, not because anyone really believes they are one and the same. There is indeed only 1 China, and it’s the PRC. The ROC lost. Taiwan is Taiwan, and to continue this fantasy that the ROC is like a government in exile is delusional.
Go ahead and flame me and bury me with historical facts and figures, but just considering what’s happening in reality today, they are two unique countries.[/quote]
My claim is that in point of fact that this country is the Republic of China, and that in this country, Taiwan is a province of China. Many if not most Taiwanese and Westerners are understandably unhappy with that fact; but there is no government on Earth that recognizes a Taiwanese country. And, no Taiwanese has attempted to assert that claim except in point of political, legal, historical, or moral theory, apart perhaps from the period immediately after Japan annexed the island.
My pet peeve in this regard is that too many pro-independence Taiwanese expect the rest of the world to go out on a limb and make moves towards recognizing a specifically Taiwanese state without having made a more forthright claim to being an independent country. After other countries and organizations, such as the US and UN take that leap, the Taiwanese people will decide to declare independence. Of course, we can point to the fact that any time Taiwan so much as looks in the direction of independence, it gets a lot of pressure from China and the US, to say the least.
But, to draw an imperfect comparison with Egypt, until the Egyptians stood up for themselves, neither the diplomatic or media worlds gave the question of Egyptian “dictatorship” much notice. And, when the Egyptians did stand up, and in the most noble fashion, the diplomatic world–the world of governments and “recognition”–either refused to help or tried to prop Mubarak up. In the end, it was up to the Egyptians, and the rest of the world had no choice but to comply.
Or Tiananmen, which was suppressed with greater ruthlessness. Was (or is) the Chinese government illegitimate? There is obviously plenty of reason to say so, but the Chinese people did not really want democracy at that time, and for all the passion and fury, had little stomach to press the matter.
Finally, Tibet. I consider that a country. It is not a matter of passports, because those are as fictional as anything else. What matters is the will of the people, and the Taiwanese have not been willing to stake the claim to independence. Whether or not that is wise or just, prudent or cowardly is another question, but a people does not legislate itself into becoming a country. It must struggle for it. Passports, currencies, and armies are not “reality” or the distinguishing marks of a nation. A willful people is. Until such a people appear, this is a province of China.
Supposing that you are right about the ROC being a fiction. That fact does not necessarily make a Taiwanese nation a reality. The current growth of Taiwanese identity may in the historical scheme of things be a temporary diversion to becoming part of unified Chinese state. The burden is on the Taiwanese people and not on anybody else.
Yes, but not international law nor in the political reality of the behavior of the Powers. That is why we continue to speak on this issue. The status of Taiwan is undetermined, period. The PRC and ROC leadership know perfectly well that Taiwan’s status is undetermined. The trick is to avoid falling into the “yeah, it sucks but that’s the way it is” trap that you have proposed in your two posts above.