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NASA pulls ‘province of China’ Web site reference

“It is a country’s basic right to maintain its name, yet Taiwan’s name has been abused by others over and over again, revealing that there are still deficiencies in Taiwan’s right to exercise sovereignty.”

— Shortcake, a Taiwanese blogger

A NASA Web site that offers researchers downloadable satellite data no longer lists Taiwan as “Taiwan, Province of China” on the page. After a Taiwanese blogger who goes by the pseudonym “Shortcake” wrote about it in his blog, a large group of Internet users sent protest e-mails to NASA, which changed the name to “Taiwan” on Thursday.

Shortcake said the Web site used to refer to Taiwan as “Taiwan,” but speculated that the government’s talk of a “diplomatic truce” with China led to the change on the NASA Web site.

The blogger said this violated the 1996 Memorandum of Understanding signed by the US Department of State, which stated that the US government and its officials should refer to Taiwan as “Taiwan.”

Shortcake wrote a protest letter to the agency and invited fellow Internet users to copy his letter and send it to NASA. Within a day, NASA edited the Web page and changed Taiwan’s name back to “Taiwan.”

Shortcake went to school in the US and worked there for more than a decade. In his blog, he discusses acts by governments, agencies and international organizations that degrade Taiwan’s national sovereignty.

This is not the first time he has written a letter of protest and called on other Internet users to join in the written protest. Most organizations, after receiving letters of protest, change Taiwan’s name to Taiwan on their Web sites, he said, citing a US railway company, Google Maps, the WHO, the Global Invasive Species Database and Nokia as examples.

Shortcake returned to Taiwan in July last year, quitting a well-paid job because of the passion he felt for his country, he said.

Shortcake said he had promoted activism because he felt that Taiwan is often degraded in the international community.

“It is a country’s basic right to maintain its name, yet Taiwan’s name has been abused by others over and over again, revealing that there are still deficiencies in Taiwan’s right to exercise sovereignty,” he said.

He said he felt he had the duty to protest this treatment and help the nation combat it.

Over the years, Shortcake said he has been pleased to find many like-minded people. As long as people are willing to speak out, Taiwan has a good chance of having its name respected, he said.
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