Recently I took a job as an intern with a company called the China Intel Organization. We mainly specialize in providing information and analysis on logistics and infrastructure within China, often for larger corporations or for trade publications and journals.
One of our recent tasks was compiling country profiles for various east and south Asian countries, focusing on their economy, transport infrastructure, and logistics markets. I was responsible for about six countries, including Hong Kong and Taiwan.
For these entities, finding information wasn’t particularly difficult (even if the Taiwanese government website is firewalled here on the mainland). What did trip me up a bit, though, was nomenclature. What’s the proper name for each place?
Hong Kong is the easier of the two to distinguish, as its status is far clearer. For all intents and purposes, Hong Kong is a separate country from China. It has its own currency, customs operation, laws, and political structure. Beijing controls the territory’s defense and foreign affairs and has significant sway in who actually governs. Otherwise, Hong Kong is independent, as anyone who goes there for Visa runs will attest.
Hong Kong is officially a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China, along with Macao. In writing my profile, I used the acronym SAR, despite its unfortunate implication of the “SARS” respiratory illness that struck south China earlier this decade. I couldn’t use “island”, because much of Hong Kong sits on a peninsula. “Country”, “Colony”, or “Territory” all seemed inappropriate. “Region” also didn’t fit, because the term “region” indicates a far larger geographical area, such as “Southeast Asia”. So I was stuck with SAR.
Taiwan was even trickier. Its status, as we know, is a subject of great controversy in East Asia. Taiwan is a de facto independent state, but it is only recognized as such by a handful of mainly insignificant countries. For roughly thirty years, the Western world regarded Taiwan as the legitimate government of China. This changed in the late 1970s as countries such as the US sought rapproachment with the mainland. Now, Taiwan is sort of in limbo.
Taiwan’s official name is the Republic of China. The ROC has existed in one shape or another for roughly 100 years, after it toppled the Qing Dynasty in 1911. From then until 1949, it was the official government of all of China, excluding Taiwan only because the island was under Japanese occupation until 1945. When the ROC leader Chiang Kai-Shek fled to Taiwan, he took the name with him. It has stuck.
Within the People’s Republic of China, of course, the Republic of China is a meaningless designation. The mainland refers to Taiwan as “Taiwan Province”, even though Beijing holds no power on the island.
In international competition, Taiwan and China (and Hong Kong) compete as separate entities. To overcome mainland objections, Taiwan is referred to as “Chinese Taipei”. I recently read an economic report from the Asia Development Bank in which Taiwan was called “Taipei, China”. This strikes me as odd; why identify a territory by its capital city?
I suspect that this bit of confusion will exist until the China/Taiwan situation is resolved, though this intern would be happy if someone came up with a name I could automatically reproduce in my reports.
Of course, odd country-names are not the exclusive provenance of China. Here are some others off the top of my head:
-The break-up of Yugoslavia has been a nightmare for mapmakers. What was once a unified state has become several different countries. First, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, and Macedonia split from Belgrade’s control. The territory comprising Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, and Vojvodina formed the rump state of Yugoslavia. Of these, Macedonia was the most controversial. Greece objected to the use of the name (identical to their northernmost province) and so the newly independent state became known as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, or FYROM for short.
Then, the rump state of Yugoslavia became known as Serbia & Montenegro. When the latter declared its independence, the situation appeared to simplify. Then, of course, Kosovo became an independent state as well, so now Belgrade’s dominion has shrunk even further.
- I once read an article in The Economist about nomenclature difficulties with The Czech Republic. I believe the country even held a vote to determine a new name, but no acceptable alternatives emerged. One I like is Czechia, but as of yet it doesn’t exist.
-Belgian Congo became Zaire but then changed again to The Democratic Republic of Congo, so as not to be confused with Congo-Brazzaville, formerly French Congo.
-For some reason when I was in high school, the Ivory Coast became Cote D’Ivoire, which is of course French for The Ivory Coast. Why did this happen? Also, East Timor became “Timor-Leste”, which is just Portoguese for, wait for it, East Timor.
-Some of these are controversial. Burma changed its name to Myanmar after a military coup in 1988, but due to the odious nature of the Burmese regime some news agencies stubbornly refuse to recognize the new name.
-Bombay became Mumbai, who (I’m told) is apparently a Hindu goddess that represents the city. Bom is Portoguese for “good”, while bay is English for, uh, “bay”.
-China changed quite a bit of its place names when pinyin became the standard on the mainland. Thus, Peking is now Beijing, Chungking now Chongqing, and Nanking now “Nanjing”. The old names still exist in certain ways; most people say “Peking duck” to describe the city’s signature dish, and the “Nanking massacre” is heard more than “Nanjing massacre”. “Chungking Mansions” is the name of a legendary guesthouse complex in Hong Kong.
If pinyin were used for place names in Hong Kong and Taiwan, then the former would be called Xianggang, while the latter’s capital city would be Taibei.
-And finally, here’s a little story. When I was a kid, our local football team (the San Francisco 49ers) were a dynasty, always good and regularly winning Super Bowls. Our quarterback was Joe Montana, generally regarded as one of the three or four best in football history. When the 49ers traded Montana to the Kansas City Chiefs toward the end of his career, the San Francisco Chronicle actually dug up some people who planned to move to Kansas City just to follow Joe. That’s how popular he was.
Anyway, during the height of Montana-mania a small town in the state of Montana renamed itself “Joe”. At around the same time, the Dallas Cowboys (our rival) had a great quarterback named Troy Aikman. A city in Texas, conversely, renamed itself “Troy”, not realizing (apparently) that Troy, Texas doesn’t have the same ring to it as Joe, Montana. Oh- those Texans.
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