I've told this story once or twice on HN before so apologies for anyone re-reading it, but it seems relevant: I was doing some IPTV stuff in China a couple of years ago and we were warned that, among the things the government would be watching our streams for, was use of the word "Taiwan". We absolutely weren't allowed to use it, instead using "Chinese Taipei".
I spent half a year in China, and I didn't find the word Taiwan as a location offensive to anyone. Could it have been the case that you weren't allowed to say Taiwan specifically when referring to it as a political entity? I was under the impression that Chinese Taipei is the compromise name the two governments agreed on using when referring to Taiwan as an independent entity in sporting events, since having an independent team called Taiwan would not be compatible with China's position that Taiwan belongs to China. However, when referring to Taiwan geographically as the author of this article did, I never once heard Chinese people say Chinese Taipei (neither 中华台北 nor 中国台北). I think in general when people refer to a country by its capital (e.g. Washington or Beijing) they're specifically referring to the country's government. So it makes sense that people wouldn't use Chinese Taipei to mean the whole island of Taiwan if they're not talking about the ROC but rather just the region. I found that people just referred to the island of Taiwan as 台湾 (Taiwan), but certain Chinese government propaganda did the Taiwan, China thing like the author of this article. A video they showed us on an Air China flight showed a photograph of Taipei and labeled it as 中国台湾省台北市 (Taipei, Taiwan Province, China).
Sounds like you know a lot more about it than me, and certainly makes sense - I was at an esports tournament (so would likely follow the rules of sports events), the 2002 World Cyber Games Grand Final. We weren't given any background, just a list of words not to use on air.
You probably used English as a lingua franca, what happens is that whoever watches you doesn't understand 99% of what you're saying except for a few keywords. This has caused a lot of diplomatic grief even between allied countries, because without context the worst is always assumed (cognitive bias, I guess). It seems to me a similar situation applies here so a list of words to avoid or replace would be a sensible thing to use.
Sounds reasonable, but we weren't given it as "the Chinese might make a mistake, be careful" it was "here's a list from the people who will be watching, they say you can't use these words".
Comments
I've told this story once or twice on HN before so apologies for anyone re-reading it, but it seems relevant: I was doing some IPTV stuff in China a couple of years ago and we were warned that, among the things the government would be watching our streams for, was use of the word "Taiwan". We absolutely weren't allowed to use it, instead using "Chinese Taipei".
So I'd suggest it could offend some people :)
I spent half a year in China, and I didn't find the word Taiwan as a location offensive to anyone. Could it have been the case that you weren't allowed to say Taiwan specifically when referring to it as a political entity? I was under the impression that Chinese Taipei is the compromise name the two governments agreed on using when referring to Taiwan as an independent entity in sporting events, since having an independent team called Taiwan would not be compatible with China's position that Taiwan belongs to China. However, when referring to Taiwan geographically as the author of this article did, I never once heard Chinese people say Chinese Taipei (neither 中华台北 nor 中国台北). I think in general when people refer to a country by its capital (e.g. Washington or Beijing) they're specifically referring to the country's government. So it makes sense that people wouldn't use Chinese Taipei to mean the whole island of Taiwan if they're not talking about the ROC but rather just the region. I found that people just referred to the island of Taiwan as 台湾 (Taiwan), but certain Chinese government propaganda did the Taiwan, China thing like the author of this article. A video they showed us on an Air China flight showed a photograph of Taipei and labeled it as 中国台湾省台北市 (Taipei, Taiwan Province, China).
Sounds like you know a lot more about it than me, and certainly makes sense - I was at an esports tournament (so would likely follow the rules of sports events), the 2002 World Cyber Games Grand Final. We weren't given any background, just a list of words not to use on air.
You probably used English as a lingua franca, what happens is that whoever watches you doesn't understand 99% of what you're saying except for a few keywords. This has caused a lot of diplomatic grief even between allied countries, because without context the worst is always assumed (cognitive bias, I guess). It seems to me a similar situation applies here so a list of words to avoid or replace would be a sensible thing to use.
Sounds reasonable, but we weren't given it as "the Chinese might make a mistake, be careful" it was "here's a list from the people who will be watching, they say you can't use these words".