A group of Chinese activists mobilized by the Anti-CNN website has protested to a Korean youth movement about a map of China that excludes Hainan Island and Taiwan. The map was displayed by the youth group in a Museum of Korean culture.
The activists said that Chinese mainland was colored gray on the map, but the islands of Taiwan and Hainan were colored blue.
"It seems to be almost a consensus in Korea that Hainan and Taiwan do not belong to China," one activist complained. "The map also excludes Aksayqin (a western border region at the junction of Tibet and Xinjiang), which is also Chinese territory," said another.
The activists sent a protest e-mail to the youth group on September 21.
This is not the first time inaccurate maps of China have been published. A map published by the Football Association of East Asia in 2005 missed out Taiwan; a 2007 map published by the Federation International de Football Association (FIFA) omitted Taiwan and part of Tibet; in July 2007, Internet users discovered that Google Earth had marked both Taipei and Beijing as capital cities.
"International disputes over the territory of China are concentrated in four regions," an official in the State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping told the International Herald Tribune, "Taiwan, the Aksayqin Region, the McMahon Line, and the South China Sea Islands and Diaoyu (Fishing) Islands."
"Because of their strategic location and rich resources, the South China Sea Islands and Diaoyu (Fishing) Islands are often the focus of debate." The official added that sometimes Taipei is marked as a capital city and Taiwan and the mainland are marked with different colors.
"In most cases, the mistakes are the result of lack of knowledge," the official said. "When releasing a map, organizations often just pay attention to shapes and don't worry about disputed territories. Usually they correct mistakes in a timely fashion," he added, citing the immediate correction of a map excluding Taiwan published in 2007 by the website of the Women's World Cup.
In July this year, Anti-CNN complained to U.S. charity USAID (United States Department foreign aid) about a map on its web site that missed out Taiwan and Hainan Island. Three days later they received an apology from USAID, saying it had corrected the error.
Professor Wang Fan, of the Foreign Affairs College said, "The reasons for mistakes on maps are very complicated, and they are often due to ignorance."
But the activists were not placated. "I hope the media and the government will take up this issue," said Anti-CNN founder Rao Jin, adding that the voices of Chinese netizens were not powerful enough to solve the problem alone.
The Anti-CNN website was set up in response to what many Chinese saw as Western media bias against China in the reporting of the international leg of the 2008 Olympics torch relay.
(China.org.cn by Jessica Zhang, October 14, 2008)