China says - do not list Taiwan as a country on your website

breaking_free

I am ropable.

We have an offfice in China. Apparently a Chinese customer "complained" to my Chinese colleague there that there is an "error" in our online order form. The error is that the dropdown list of countries includes Taiwan. A quick Google suggests that my company is not alone in being asked to remove Taiwan or change the entry to "Province of China" or similar.

So far my Chinese colleague has me asked 3 times to change this but I've been dragging my heels. My boss told me to make the change, so I truthfully explained that the order form contains fixed entries that can't be edited. Nonetheless a workaround will no doubt be forced on me.

Has anybody else been in this situation? I do NOT want to bow down to the will of the Chinese communist party! What would you do?

biscan25

You either do what you are told by the boss, or you take a stand if you are that passionate that is worth risking your job over.

From time to time, I have to hold my nose to advise pension schemes of oil companies, banks, and public schools. I've only ever drawn the line at arms companies, and declared an internal conflict. This isn't a problem, someone else in the company just takes on the role.

DullGreyGuy

Not over Taiwan, or to be honest anything so politically charged, but have said that I dont want to be involved in certain ventures that I have been certain were doomed to failure. 

At the end of the day if the company wants to comply then they will, you may be accepted as an objector and someone else gets the task to do it or you may be fired for refusing to do your job. Obviously depends on how strongly you feel about the matter and if you are willing to give up your job over it.

For me its generally worked out ok and in one case a director phoned me about 18 months later and after I had chosen to leave the company to admit the project had been a total failure.

breaking_free

Yep, reckon I'll have to suck this one up. This political push really irks me but I'm not going to jeopardise my job over it. Thanks for your opinions.

penners324

Your company risks losing Chinese customers if it's not done....

artyboy

It's something that's been starting to trouble me at my own employer, a financial organisation with, let's say, more than just a casual relationship with China. The stink that gets caused if anyone doesn't refer to Taiwan or Hong Kong in a politically acceptable way, not to mention some mind bending doublethink on all sorts of human rights issues is making me seriously think that I want to be somewhere else right now...

(Just to demonstrate that even bankers can develop a conscience, eventually!)

Gavin83

Well in all honesty I don't consider Taiwan a country either so while I have no political reasoning behind it I'd say your list is wrong. Maybe just focus on that instead of the real reason it's being removed. 

artyboy

Gavin83 said:

Well in all honesty I don't consider Taiwan a country either so while I have no political reasoning behind it I'd say your list is wrong. Maybe just focus on that instead of the real reason it's being removed. 

Out of curiosity, if your reasoning isn't political, then how did you arrive at your view?

400ixl

Companies that operate in China have to follow the laws of that country and this is one of them.

I doubt you are going to persuade them they should not have a China office, so the alternatives are to get on with it, or find another job with a company that does not have a China operation and can therefore call the country whatever it wishes.

Ethical decision only you can make, which by the sounds of it you have decided on.

elsien

artyboy said:

Gavin83 said:

Well in all honesty I don't consider Taiwan a country either so while I have no political reasoning behind it I'd say your list is wrong. Maybe just focus on that instead of the real reason it's being removed. 

Out of curiosity, if your reasoning isn't political, then how did you arrive at your view?

Just because I was interested enough to Google, 
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries-that-recognize-taiwan

Gavin83

artyboy said:

Gavin83 said:

Well in all honesty I don't consider Taiwan a country either so while I have no political reasoning behind it I'd say your list is wrong. Maybe just focus on that instead of the real reason it's being removed. 

Out of curiosity, if your reasoning isn't political, then how did you arrive at your view?

Ultimately there isn't a definitive list of countries in the World. Different organisations (and countries) will have varying opinions and while all would consider say Spain a country there are a lot of discrepancies for the more complicated cases. Taiwan is certainly one of these.

Personally for my steer on what I would and wouldn't consider a country I'd use the UN member list. I believe there's 193 UN members so I'd consider those 193 as countries. Taiwan isn't on that list so I wouldn't consider it one.

Also what elsien posted. There are very few places in this World that recognise Taiwan as a country.

If you don't use a list such as the UN then how would you define a country? If it's based on somewhere declaring themselves as such then there are potentially thousands of countries on this planet. If it's based on general recognition then the above applies. If it's based on having the hallmarks of a country (government, currency, passport, etc) then there are still a lot of places that would fall under this and still couldn't seriously be considered a country.

It's fair to add there isn't really a right or wrong answer to this but it's certainly an interesting debate.