Friday, July 25, 2008

Thank You China For What Was Already Ours

Today's piece in the China Post about China's "goodwill," by having one of their news services use the name Zhonghua Taibei instead of Zhongguo Taibei, is just another example of how low Ma is taking Taiwan.

The usage of Zhonghua Taibei has been agreed upon by the concerned parties since 1989. Also, note that the agreed upon name for Taiwan is for the internationally sanctioned activities/games. It does not require local media to do so. So in a way, yes, this is China's "goodwill" as they are not required to use Zhonghua Taibei, but taking a step back-- they should be using it anyways as it is the official title for Taiwan in international games. For them to have been using Zhongguo Taibei is just their own ploy to keep their billions of minions believing the propaganda that Taiwan "is and will always be a part of China."

An interesting note is that since there is also the agreed upon flag to use for Taiwan in international games (the "Chinese Taipei flag"), not all media in the past has displayed that flag during their coverage of games. According to wikipedia (which is not the best of all sources, I agree):
The flag, however, is not recognized on some media references. In 1992, during the Winter Olympics in Albertville, France, CBS used the flag of the Republic of China with the official "TPE" code. During the 2004 Summer Olympics, the Australian Baseball Federation Web site used a waving National Flag of the ROC to refer to the island country. Many news networks and web sites also prefer to use the National Flag of the Republic of China rather than the designated Chinese Taipei flag.
The reach of China has extended too far. For anyone to consider this as "goodwill" is out of their minds.

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