Google Maps and Disputed Borders
Thanks to Sanjay for alerting me to this…
Pl. see below two versions of Google map of India: one as seen in India and the other as seen in China
Note in particular that Arunachal Pradesh and Aksai Chin are both shown as “disputed” in the Indian version while the boundary is fully settled and neatly demarcated in the Chinese version.
Error, misunderstanding or double standards?
Related Post: Arunachal: Sleepwalking into a disaster
Hi Shantanu,
Thanks for the maps by Google. It is well known that Google is known to kowtow to the whims and fancies of Chinese communists. By the way check out this Google map link with “.inâ€: http://maps.google.co.in/
Indian borders are shown correctly.
Guys
Time we stopped blaming china for our pathetic state.
No one listens to an amoeba, everyone listens to a predator.
Shantanu,
I think there is nothing wrong with Google on this one.
maps.google.cn (China website) shows boundaries as per China’s perception (AP and AC in China, fully settled)
maps.google.co.in (India website) shows boundaries as per India’s perception (AP and AC,PoK in India, fully settled)
maps.google.com which is the global website (or US website, to be more precise) shows all the disputed regions as disputed regions (dashed boundaries et al.)
I am in China right now and can see all the three versions.
I guess Google is bound by the condition to show it that way from Chinese Govt! Can we write to Google and get info on such restrictions put by Chinese Govt?
Augusto, AG, Harshit and Vivek: Thanks.
***
Harshit: The second map I have posted comes from ditu.google.com which is the chinese site of maps.google.com (I believe ditu=map in Chinese)…
I’m guessing that from a Chinese PC/laptop, typing maps.google.com takes you to ditu.google.com which shows what I have posted above.
Interesting that you can see maps.google.co.in sitting in China – I would have expected it to be banned by the Great Firewall…
And I just realised that the fact you are writing this comment from China means that Satyameva-Jayate.org is not banned either! It used to be…about 3 years ago.
Before you all go for Google’s jugular…let me tell you something.
Google is just a company. Period. They do not stand up for anything other than what companies stand up for. If you worshipped Google till the previous moment, that is your mistake, not Google’s !
They will do what governments want them to do. And they have done so in the past, handed over things on a platter to any government that wields power over them. And done that simultaneously with all governments, making each happy.
But do remember that we all are increasingly dependent on that Google for everything.
So, once in a while, as we sleepwalk into the future, do use Guruji.com http://www.guruji.com/ for your searches. Or StartPage.com http://www.startpage.com/eng/. Or http://www.yandex.com/. Don’t rely solely on GMail. And check http://scroogle.org/ once in a while.
Nicholas Kristof suggests boycotting Bing. Excerpts:
…Western corporations have often behaved embarrassingly in China, sacrificing any principles to ingratiate themselves with the Communist Party authorities. Yahoo was the worst, handing over information about several email account holders so that they could be arrested – and then dissembling and defending its monstrous conduct. Now Microsoft is sacrificing the integrity of Bing searches so as to cozy up to State Security in Beijing. In effect, it has chosen become part of the Communist Party’s propaganda apparatus.
If you search a term on Bing that is politically sensitive in China, in English the results are legitimate. Search “Tiananmen†and you’ll find out about the army firing on pro-democracy protesters in 1989. Search Dalai Lama, Falun Gong and you also get credible results. Conduct the search in complex Chinese characters (the kind used in Taiwan and Hong Kong) and on the whole you still get authentic results.
But conduct the search with the simplified characters used in mainland China, then you get sanitized pro-Communist results. This is especially true of image searches. Magic! No Tiananmen Square massacre. The Dalai Lama becomes an oppressor. Falun Gong believers are villains, not victims.
What’s most offensive is that this is true wherever in the world the search is conducted – including in my office in New York. If Microsoft felt it had to bow to Chinese censorship within China’s borders, based on the IP address, that might be defensible. But when Microsoft skews its worldwide searches to make Hu Jintao feel better, that’s a disgrace. It becomes simply a unit of the Central Committee Propaganda Department.
(This is an issue with Google as well, but to a much lesser extent. Google censors results on its browser used within China, google.cn, but offers mostly uncensored results using simplified Chinese characters on its worldwide browser, google.com. However, some searches on google.com, such as images for Falun Gong, are also censored.)
While searching on internet on general election 2009 I found this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2009_India_Loksabha_Elections_Map.png
By looking at this image it felt like someone is chopping off the head.
Jai Hind
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/commonwealth-website-shows-jk-gujarat-in-pak/109218-3.html?from=tn
Another blunder they corrected though but it was with them CGF for 5 years.
@Indian
The CGF website developers seem to have a really distorted world view. Even whole of Bhutan is shown as part of India. No one seems to be worried about that :-).
This is how Google shows Arunachal depending on whether you are in India, China, USA or Pakistan…
http://twitpic.com/52mxhy