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

artyboy

Gavin83 said:

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. 

I think that's kind of my point though - any determination is ultimately going to be political, the fact that you've chosen to go by the UN consensus view doesn't change that. 

I suspect what you meant was that you weren't specifically taking China's "side" here, but I don't think that there's any chance of arriving at a view without politics of one sort or another getting in the way!

Gavin83

artyboy said:

Gavin83 said:

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. 

I think that's kind of my point though - any determination is ultimately going to be political, the fact that you've chosen to go by the UN consensus view doesn't change that. 

I suspect what you meant was that you weren't specifically taking China's "side" here, but I don't think that there's any chance of arriving at a view without politics of one sort or another getting in the way!

Fair point. 

Marcon

breaking_free said:

I am ropable.

Don't waste your energy.

breaking_free said:

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?

Either quit if you feel strongly enough (and are sure you are employable elsewhere), or find someone who can edit the entries. Those are the realistic choices.

artyboy

Whilst I'm not suggesting that anyone pick this particular hill to die on, I wonder what the outcome would be if there was a dismissal/tribunal situation - would a tribunal rule that it was a reasonable request from an employer, or was it an overtly political act that could justify unfair dismissal... given the latest UN report, I am curious how this could be ruled...

Voyager2002

Two unrelated points:

1. Taiwan does not claim to be a country. Technically it is the 'Republic of China'. The government in Taipei claims to rule the whole of China, but unfortunately some parts of its territory are under temporary communist occupation! That is why governments must decide which government of China to recognise: it is not possible to maintain official diplomatic ties with both. There have been suggestions for Taiwan to declare independence, offically acknowledging that it operates as a separate country, but the official position from the mainland (the "People's Republic of China") is that this would be an intolerable provocation and would be considered as a declaration of war. So for now it is correct to refer to Taiwan as a province of China.

2. As always, the response to a management request that you want to decline is a polite explanation that since the fields cannot be edited, making the required change would involve many more changes and so the estimated time and budget necessary are signifcant, more than you expect would be acceptable. Management are likely to respond with a prolonged session of buck-passing.

ElefantEd

Just as a matter of interest, are Scotland or Wales countries? They are not UN member states! But most people (including the UK government) refer to them as countries. Of course they don't issue their own passports or have separate diplomatic relations; though Scotland does (kind of) issue its own currency........

robatwork

ElefantEd said:

Just as a matter of interest, are Scotland or Wales countries? They are not UN member states! But most people (including the UK government) refer to them as countries. Of course they don't issue their own passports or have separate diplomatic relations; though Scotland does (kind of) issue its own currency........

The UK itself is a bit of a hot mess in knowing who the hell it is. British, English, Kingdomish...none of it makes a lot of sense. Possibly way too off topic for this particular forum/thread though.

artyboy

ElefantEd said:

Just as a matter of interest, are Scotland or Wales countries? They are not UN member states! But most people (including the UK government) refer to them as countries. Of course they don't issue their own passports or have separate diplomatic relations; though Scotland does (kind of) issue its own currency........

It's a bit of a moot point, because even if Liz did suddenly take exception to Scotland being called a country, the rest of the world isn't going to kowtow to her in the way it does to China...

Gavin83

ElefantEd said:

Just as a matter of interest, are Scotland or Wales countries? They are not UN member states! But most people (including the UK government) refer to them as countries. Of course they don't issue their own passports or have separate diplomatic relations; though Scotland does (kind of) issue its own currency........

I wouldn't say so, no, at least not in the proper sense. They're certainly not sovereign states. I'd consider Scotland and Wales (plus England and NI) as nations that make up the country of United Kingdom.

Andy_L

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_with_limited_recognition