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A Tale of two Chinas?
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posted Tuesday, 25 October 2005
Without ceremony or announcement, Google has this month acted to remove a disputed legend from its Google-Maps service. Leading the company into a U-turn that many never expected it to make, and raising a number of awkward questions, including: whether or not Google has taken sides in the ongoing Sino-Taiwanese debate, and exactly how healthy is it for an international company to react to political pressure?
The map legend in question, displayed whenever a user searched for a Google map of Taiwan, described the island as being a ‘province of China’, and the move to remove it came after Taiwanese lawmakers and media groups launched a highly visible protest over the island’s name, calling on Google to drop the ‘province of China’ part of the legend from its map, and to recognize the island’s sovereignty.
Protests began in mid September and quickly escalated when lawmakers from the Taiwan Solidarity Union released a number of public denouncements of Google, which culminated in October when Taipei making an official representation to Google requesting that it amend its website.
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"The public should condemn Google for belittling the nation's
sovereignty. We simply cannot remain idle, because the nation's
sovereignty is bound to be eroded inch by inch if we fail to take heed
of China's petty political maneuverings in cases like this," 曾燦燈 (Tseng Tsan-Teng), Lawmaker, Taiwan Solidarity Union, Chinese-Taiwan |
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Shock and Awe
Though welcomed by pro-Taiwanese groups, many of whom have hailed it as a success for their cause, Google’s apparent acquiescence to Taipei come as an unexpected twist to China watchers, many of whom had dismissed the possibility of a U-turn on the naming of the island as being 'highly unlikely', particularly as Google has recently agreed comply with demands from Beijing to censor several of its Chinese language services in return for a guarantee that they would not being blocked by China’s firewall.
Surprise over Google’s U-turn counts double for some observers as it came hot on the heals of a statement by Google, which was broadly interpreted as meaning that Google wouldn’t be amending its maps in any way.
In an earlier response to criticism on the issue, Google had firmly stated that it had a policy of using international naming conventions, both to ensure consistency and accuracy on its maps, and to ensure that people could find the places that they were looking for. At the time, this statement was taken as a coded reference that Google would be following the lead set by the ‘One China’ a policy under which various nations have agreed, using a variety of ‘diplomatic language’, not to recognize Chinese-Taiwan as being a sovereign state.
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“We rely on international naming conventions to find a consistent policy” Debbie Frost, Spokesperson, Google, US |
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What’s Your Story?
When asked for comment on its apparent shift in policy, representatives from Google denied that they had taken Taipei’s side in the ‘One China’ debate. Saying, in their own defense, that the removal of the offending legend came as part of a "regular update", and that it was not a political statement.
Google did however concede that it had ‘accelerated’ the update, moving its schedule up in an effort to reduce contention on the issue.
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"We accelerated our UI [User interface] upgrade given the attention that was focused on a soon to be defunct part of the UI," Spokesperson, Google, US |
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While Google’s spokesperson denied that the company had acquiesced to pressure from Taipei, it was confirmed that representatives from Google had meet with delegates from Taiwan’s foreign ministry, in San Francisco, to discuss the naming of the island, shortly before the update was made.
Update?
Though contention exists regarding the reasons behind the Google’s apparent U-turn, the update referred to by Google’s spokesperson does exist, and was made when Google merged it ‘Google Map’ search engine with its ‘Google Local’ amenities search engine.
During this update, the sidebar containing the offending legend was removed wholesale.
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“[The sidebar was removed because it] was not often helpful for users, and took up a lot of the screen'' Spokesperson, Google, US |
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While the removal of the legend is being touted as a pro Taiwanese/anti-Mainland gesture by some, others have however commented that, in removing any and all descriptions from view, Google has made most arguments moot and that, rather than being a U-turn, Google has taken a neutral position. Neither committing to, nor denying, any one perspective on Taiwanese sovereignty.
Denounce, Deny Distort
As would have been expected, had Google’s move itself been expected, Google’s decision to remove the ‘Province of China’ legend from its map was met by sharp criticism from Beijing despite it not going so far as to implicitly name the island as being independent.
Shortly after the Changes became public knowledge in China, Xinhua, China’s state controlled media agency, moved to denounce them. Labelling the changes made during the update as being an illegitimate decision on Google’s part, and promoting the views that removing the ‘Province of China’ legend from may ‘mislead the America people into thinking that the island is a sovereign state’ and lead ‘overseas Chinese to develop the wrong concepts’.
Xinhua was equally quick to declare that Google had given in "under pressure of extremists in Taiwan's pan-Green camp” to change its software.
As is customary with Chinese news reports, Xinhua did not elaborate further on the meaning of the term ‘wrong concepts’, and would not be bound into revealing either what form the alleged pressure on Google took, or what leverage a small pacific island might have against one of the worlds most powerful Internet companies.
In their coverage, Chinese news sources, including the China Daily, also played heavily on the Sino-U.S. joint communiques; under which America agreed to switch its diplomatic recognition of China from Taipei to Beijing through its ‘One China’ agreement in their efforts to ‘show’ that Google was on the wrong side of the argument.
These agencies however did not make clear the distinction between China’s ‘One China’ policy; which binds both the Government and industry, and America’s ‘One China’ policy; which is binding to the US Government, but which leaves American companies free to recognize Taiwan as they see fit.
Breaking the Mould?
While Google cited ‘international naming conventions’, used for the sake of convenience and consistency, as part of its argument for including the original ‘Province of China’ legend, some observers have asked that it be noted that, by specifically labelling the island as being a Province of China, Google was in fact breaking its own naming convention.
Before its update, Google Maps specifically named the disputed island ‘Taiwan, Province of China’, it however did not likewise name Japanese-Okinawa ‘Okinawa, Prefecture of Japan’, the Hawaii islands as ‘Hawaii, State of America’, or Hong Kong as ‘Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region of China’.
In reality, Google-Maps was not known to have included a legend that tied any other island, prefecture, province, state, Special Administrative Region, or territory, to a master body. Making ‘Taiwan, Province of China’ the exception rather than the rule.
Suspicions
Though Google’s removal of the ‘Province of China’ legend seems clear cut, some suspicions remain over Google’s overall intent for its Map search engine, and over the length to which it has gone against Beijing’s wishes. A substantial portion of this suspicion comes in regard to Google-Maps diverging treatment of Chinese characters and English place names.
While Google Maps accepts both Chinese characters and English place names for many prominent Mainland Chinese Cities, including 南京 (Nanjing) and 北京 (Beijing), and accept the English place names ‘Taiwan’ and ‘Taipei’, it rejects both 臺灣/台灣 (Taiwan) and 臺北/台北 (Taipei).
A search for 臺灣省/台湾省 (Taiwan Province) also resulted in no matches being found.
It is not yet clear if this outcome is dependent on the location of the searcher, or if it is global.
Some opinions regard this as being a possible oversight based on Google-Maps primarily being an English language service whose Asia remit largely tails out after encompassing Japan (which has its own Google-Maps domain). Other opinions however point out that, even after its update, Google Map also does not include any reference to Tibet, in any language, either as a sovereign state or as a component of China.
Note:
It has been stated, in some elements of the international press, that the wording from the original Google Map read “Taiwan, a province of the People's Republic of China”, the actual wording was “Taiwan, a province of China”.
View Comments/Add a Comment (2)
1. saucy del mar left...
Wednesday, 26 October 2005 12:01 pm
>>
It is not yet clear if this outcome is dependent on the location of the
searcher, or if it is global.<<
2. ACB left...
Friday, 28 October 2005 5:15 am :: http://angrychineseblogger.blog-city.com
Did you input the names in in Kanji or Hanzi?