Taiwan R.O.C. ?

[slug]

Currently PBase lists the region as "Taiwan"

I received a request to rename this to "Taiwan R.O.C." (Republic of China)

Does anybody have any facts or opinions about the correctness or political significance of this?

My thinking is to leave it as is without the R.O.C. since as far as geography goes, simply "Taiwan" is unambiguous. Also the American C.I.A. (http://www.cia.gov) does not include R.O.C.

I like correctness but don't want to offend anyone because of my ignorance of the matter. Or if I'm going to offend someone either way, at least I'd like to try to understand why.

thanks,
-slug

[framewerkz]

It's not really a big deal - except to the Taiwanese. I wouldn't get embroiled in the whole thing and leave it at that

[gillettecraig]

I'd expect all kinds of people have ideas and opinions about it. Why not call it what your members from Taiwan want to call it?

[srijith]

Well.. I have no idea how it may play out and neither do I have a problem either way, but I can forsee a potential problem.. If for some reason this comes under the scrutiny of the Chinese Govt, I dont know how they will react. Will they filter out PBase.com.? They have done similar things earlier to other sites. If China is a big market for PBase, it could create problems..

[framewerkz]

If that's the case, the Big China will indeed have problems if you call it "ROC", because they don't recognize it as a separate state. And definitely not as another "China". One China. That's the mantra.

[wangi]

In which case it's fine the way it is... From a Taiwanese POV they have their own country listed, from a Chinese POV Taiwan is simply listed as a "region" - compare directly to Scotland having a listing (it's not a country per se, but a region of the UK).

[ukexpat]

In which case it's fine the way it is... From a Taiwanese POV they have their own country listed, from a Chinese POV Taiwan is simply listed as a "region" - compare directly to Scotland having a listing (it's not a country per se, but a region of the UK).

Depends what you mean by "country" -- Scotland is not a sovereign state (despite some devolved powers), but many Scots would argue it is a distinct country, one that just happens to be part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

[wangi]

Exactly - alll sorts of arguments and points-of-view - just like the Taiwan case too.

But Scotland isn't a real country, and that's coming from a Scot (who has Scotland on the profile rather than UK).

[ukexpat]

Exactly - alll sorts of arguments and points-of-view - just like the Taiwan case too.

But Scotland isn't a real country, and that's coming from a Scot (who has Scotland on the profile rather than UK).

Like I said, Scotland is not a sovereign nation...

[slug]

Wikipedia provides info on this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan

So as far as PBase is concerned, Taiwan means the Island of Taiwan

-slug

[slug]

ok.
new feature on the account settings page labeled Location
here you can put any string you want which will replace the country name that display on your profile page.

this will solve various problems.
now if you think you live in Taiwan R.O.C. you can set that as your Location string. as for the country, you can choose either Taiwan or China and that will determine which flag you display.

some people have requested that United States be changed to United States of America
I never did that because it made the string very long, and United States seemed sufficiently unambiguous.

Now though, you can add the "of America" if you want, or as I did for an example at http://www.pbase.com/slug/profile made my string "Chapel Hill, North Carolina" while keeping the US flag.

-slug

[ukexpat]

Excellent upgrade Slug!!

[matiasasun]

Excellent!

[srijith]

What about people like me? I am an Indian but I live in Netherlands. If I put Netherlands in Location field, I will have "Netherlands" below the Indian flag!

[wangi]

srijith, think out of the box a bit!

Remember the song "Englishman in New York"...