Sign up for our free weekly newsletter and never miss a story On the one hand, this has to do with China's overt claim to power in the world, and on the other with the fact that the country actually has the means to enforce its opinion. However, China has promoted its view so vehemently in recent years that foreign companies have found themselves in trouble for maps the country’s government doesn't approve of – even if they're just part of a logo or a T-shirt design. The dispute over names and borders on maps is usually a curiosity confined to the world of international diplomacy. For the Atlas of Switzerland, Hurni and his team settled on a good Swiss compromise: The body of water is labeled the «Sea of Japan or (Korean) East Sea.» The embassies of Japan and South Korea, for example, each sent Hurni glossy brochures and wanted to invite him to dinner, with the aim of persuading him to label the sea between Japan and the Korean peninsula their way: In Japan, for example, it is called the Sea of Japan, in South Korea the East Sea, in North Korea the Korean East Sea.

In 1997, Turks in Germany called for the atlas produced by the General German Automobile Club (ADAC) to be burned, because one area in its new edition had been labeled «Kurdistan.»Ĭartographer Lorenz Hurni of ETH Zurich, a Swiss research university, has also been repeatedly approached to make changes to the Swiss World Atlas produced by his institution. This means that some disputed territories on the border with India and on the island of Taiwan must be allocated to China, and the nine-dash line has to appear.Īrab states have been threatening, pleading with and cajoling mapmakers for decades, with the goal of persuading them to rename the Persian Gulf as the Arabian Gulf. There, the law demands that all maps produced in the country must represent China's conception of the world. The answer proved as simple as it was alarming: Since 2008, Mova has had many of its globes manufactured in China. Still, he wondered: How did the nine dashes end up on a globe sold in a Norwegian museum, which was made by an American company that also supports a show critical of China? China has insisted on the imaginary border for years, even though an international court has declared that there is no legal basis for it. Because Mova is one of the sponsors of his show, he took a closer look at the globe, and made a surprising discovery: A border line consisting of nine dashes was drawn in the South China Sea, marking the vast territory China claims there.Ĭhappell was of course familiar with this so-called nine-dash line. Chappell is the founder and host of the New York-based «China Uncensored,» a YouTube show critical of China.

In 2019, Chris Chappell discovered a globe by American manufacturer Mova in a museum shop in Norway.

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