Global Times - 02.09.2019

6 Monday September 2, 2019

FOCUS

By Dong Feng

C

hina has organized a week-

long publicity campaign to

promote people’s knowledge

of the national map and awareness

of national territory, starting from

August 29 to September 5.

National territory is the domain

in which a country exercises sover-

eignty and has the right of jurisdic-

tion. It also represents a country’s

sovereignty as well as its political and

diplomatic stance in the international

community, according to the Xinhua

News Agency.

Thursday marks the 16th publicity

day of the Surveying and Mapping

Law. This year’s theme is “Regulate

the usage of maps, no dot on it can

be mistaken.” The standard maps in

2019 were also released on Thursday,

according to http://www.gov.cn.

China’s Ministry of Natural Re-

sources (MNR) plans to jointly hold

a series of activities with relevant

departments in many places across

China to strengthen the awareness of

national territory, according to MNR.

A total of 269 standard maps

were released on Thursday, includ-

ing 209 maps of China and 51 of the

world, according to http://www.gov.cn.

“The national map is as solemn

as the national flag, national emblem

and national anthem. Nothing is

too small to matter in a map,” Chen

Huixian, an official from the map

technical review center under the

MNR, was quoted by the China

Youth Daily as saying.

Some problematic maps contain

political errors, including wrongly

drawing national borders and

marking China’s territory into other

countries’ domain; missing impor-

tant islands such as the South China

Sea islands, Diaoyu Islands and

Chiwei Islet; marking Taiwan and

Tibet as independent countries; have

contents on disputed

areas that do not comply

with China’s relevant regulations,

according to the China Youth Daily.

Another mistake involves confi-

dentiality – marking contents that

are sensitive or inappropriate to

publicize; or marking confidential

information.

Raising awareness

Ge Yuejing, a professor at the

School of Geography at Beijing

Normal University, told the Global

Times that national map education

should be included in ideological and

political education as well as geogra-

phy classes.

The part in the ideology courses

should focus on sovereign integrity

and homeland security, and geogra-

phy classes should offer students a

complete picture of national bound-

aries, Ge said.

“Students need to master knowl-

edge of the national map, which is

part of patriotic education. This con-

cept has been promoted in cities in

Qingdao and Chengdu, and should

be applied across the country,” Ge

said.

As a committee member of the

Chinese Society for Geodesy Pho-

togrammetry and Cartography, Ge

proposed the campaign to promote

the awareness of national territory

in 2017.

In recent years, departments

under the State Council have made

efforts to raise awareness of the

national map in education.

They have held national-level map

contests for children and launched a

campaign to investigate and rectify

problematic maps, according to

thepaper.cn.

Four years

ago, Ge offered optional

courses in Beijing Normal Uni-

versity on the national map. Some of

her students told Ge that they should

have had this knowledge of the na-

tional map earlier.

Problems persist

However, with the increasing use

of various types of maps, problematic

maps such as those with incorrect

borders and missing important

islands still exist and spread rapidly.

Such map contents are inappropri-

ate and damage national sovereignty,

security and interests, thepaper.cn

reported.

A total of 307,000 products which

contain problematic maps were

seized or withdrawn in 2017 and 330

cases of violations were filed, accord-

ing to the China Youth Daily.

In early August, netizens found

that the popular TV series Go Go

Squid used a map that did not indi-

cate the island of Taiwan, Hainan

Province, South Tibet and Aksai

Chin – a region between Southwest

China’s Tibet Autonomous Region

and Northwest China’s Xinjiang Uy-

ghur Autonomous Region – as part

of China, chinanews.com reported.

Cases of foreign companies using

problematic maps have frequently

occurred.

For example, MAC Cosmetics

apologized in March for posting a

map of China that omitted the island

of Taiwan in a promotional email

campaign to its customers in the US.

“Every time I see those maps

of China produced by Euro-

pean and American countries, I

feel China’s sovereignty has been

violated because they intentionally or

unintentionally misrepresent China’s

national borders and missed out the

important islands of China and the

South China Sea,” Ge noted.

Ge pointed out that there are two

major reasons for these errors –

some Chinese do not have a strong

awareness of the national sovereignty

and in some cases the materials have

been monopolized by multinational

corporations.

“Maps and politics have become

inseparable. National territory

represents national sovereignty

and territorial integrity. It embod-

ies a country’s political position and

should become an important part of

citizens’ awareness,” she said.

China notified 29 Fortune 500

companies to rectify online maps

that incorrectly portrayed China’s ter-

ritory in the first half of 2019, accord-

ing to a MNR release on August 2.

By Dong Feng

hina has organized a week-

long publicity campaign to

promote people’s knowledge

of the national map and awareness

of national territory, starting from

August 2 9 to September 5.

National territory is the domain

contents on disputed

areas that do not comply

with China’s relevant regulations,

according to the China Youth Daily.

Another mistake involves confi-

NO PART LEFT OUT

 Weeklong

campaign to

boost citizens’

knowledge of

national map

Page Editor:

[email protected]

Books, globes and maps are

displayed at an activity held by

the Chinese Ministry of Natural

Resources on Thursday to raise

the public’s awareness of national

territory. Photo: Courtesy of Gu Yekai