The Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) legislative caucus yesterday called on the public to write to Google to protest its listing of Taiwan as a "province of China" on its Google Maps service.
In addition to sending its own letter of protest to the US search-engine giant, the caucus asked the government to lodge a formal protest and request Google to clearly define Taiwan as "an independent state."
TSU caucus whip David Huang (黃適卓) said that Google Maps' definition of Taiwan as part of China was not only far-fetched but also unacceptable to the nation's people.
GRAPHIC: TT
"Taiwan is an independent, sovereign state. Taiwan is not part of China," Huang said.
"Taiwan has never been ruled by China, nor has the Chinese government deployed any government functionaries or armed forces here," he said.
According to Google's Web site, Google Maps provides users with data such as business locations, contact information and driving directions.
By listing Taiwan as a province of China, Google Maps is clearly succumbing to pressure from China to distort the international community's perception of the cross-strait situation, Huang said.
"It seriously sabotages the nation's sovereignty. The people of Taiwan should not allow China to spread such misleading information to the international community," Huang said.
TSU Legislator Tseng Tsan-teng (曾燦燈) said that the search engine's listing of Taiwan as a part of China has no basis in reality whatsoever.
"The public should condemn Google for belittling the nation's sovereignty. We simply cannot remain idle, because the nation's sovereignty is bound to be eroded inch by inch if we fail to take heed of China's petty political maneuverings in cases like this," Tseng said.
TSU Legislator Huang Chung-yung (
Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesman Michael Lu (
"Taiwan is not a province of China," Lu said.
David Wang (王建業), deputy director-general of the ministry's Department of Information and Cultural Affairs, said this was not the first time international Web sites or media outlets have included Taiwan as part of China's territory.
"Our stance on the matter is clear: It is something for which we have zero tolerance, and there should also be zero ambiguity about the nation's sovereignty," he said.
"Swift action must be taken to take care of the matter and set the facts straight," Wang said.
Tony Ong (
"I encourage the public to inform government agencies of similar occurrences," he said.
Those interested in lodging an online complaint with Google can go to http://www.google.com/support/maps/bin/request.py.
Additional reporting by Shih Hsiu-chuan
also see story:
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification