*Please take political discussions elsewhere; they do not belong on this list.*
The point about the boundaries of regions changing over time, and flags being associated with a former set of boundaries could have been made in a few sentences. Not only would it have avoided politics, it would have been more likely that people would actually read it (the likelihood being inversely proportional to the length). Mark <https://google.com/+MarkDavis> *— Il meglio è l’inimico del bene —* On Thu, Jul 2, 2015 at 4:12 AM, Philippe Verdy <[email protected]> wrote: > And today's Chinese province ofTibet is different from the historic Tibet, > as China incorporated other surrounding areas, including some parts taken > from Bhutan (a small part around Legaru, and a larger part to the North) > and India (some parts to the West from states of Jammu and Kashmir, which > itself is also claimed by Pakistan, and of Uttarakhand, and to the East > from Arunachal Pradesh), as well as modifying the internal borders of > Chinese provinces of Xinjiang in the nort-west and of Sichuan on the east. > The whole new province is still named Tibet but much larger than the > historic country of Tibet before its annexion. > > The Chinese claims in India and Bhutan are contested and is still subject > to very active military tensions with India. This question is then more > important than only the Tibetan free movement that does not claim anything > to India and Bhutan (and in fact these two countries are hosting Tibetan > refugees and the Free Tibet movement itself) and do not claim anything in > Chinese parts previously part of Sichuan and Xinjiang provinces. > > China also has border conflicts with Tajiskistan and a small part of > Afghanistan to extend its current province of Xinjiang to the West. The > international borders of China are then extremely fuzzy. With India and > Bhutan, the claims are theorically existing but India has kept its > presence. The situation is much less clear however with Jammu and Kashmir > (that has its own separatist movement in addition to the Pakistan claims) > and is now becoming more critical with Tajikistan and in the troubled area > bordering Afghanistan, both areas having autonomist islamic movements in > Xinjiang (including now some of them allied with Talebans operating in > Afghanistan and Tajikistan since the dissolution of the former USSR: before > that dissolution, this was also a region of border conflicts between China > and USSR). > > Now China has also maritime bordering conflicts in the South China Sea > from Vietnam to the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei as China wants to > extend its maritime borders to the south to include various small islands. > It has also conflicts with Taiwan to the north of that maritime area. > > Defining the borders of China is really complicate. And this has > consequences also on the interpretation of Chinese subdivisions of > provinces in ISO 3166-2. I would not associate flags with these official > Chinese provinces given that even China does not claim any flag. But I > would certainly not use these ISO 3166-2 Chinese subdivisions to associate > them with historic regions annexed by China, or claimed by China over other > countries (which are still a source of active conflicts and military > actions or political tensions by China against Vietnam, Taiwan, the > Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, as well with South Korea and Japan. All > countries around China have to protect their borders with China whose power > and influence is growing (even in the easternmost part of Russia with an > important Chinese community supporting China rather than Russia for the > historic conflicts with Japan). > > We've not seen any sign of stabilization and in fact the number of > territorial conflicts is growing, as well as the Chinese military presence > in all these bordering regions. Many of these existing countries also have > internal troubles since long (e.g. Myanmar, and even Vietnam due to the > past wars and military support of China for Northern Vietnam against > Southern Vietnam: now Vietnam has a significant Chinese community in its > own borders, which could support the Chinese claims in South China Sea). It > seems that China wants to create a huge matitime area connecting the > maritime roads from Hong Kong to Singapore and new conflicts could appear > with Indonesia. > > 2015-07-01 19:33 GMT+02:00 Doug Ewell <[email protected]>: > >> Shervin Afshar <shervinafshar at gmail dot com> wrote: >> >> > This is a mechanism for flags of sub-regions with ISO 3166-2 codes; >> > e.g. US States, countries and provinces of the UK, Tibet, etc. >> >> The Tibet Autonomous Region (CN-54), like other regions in China except >> Hong Kong and Macao, has no official flag. >> >> Although this is what some users might expect, implementing or >> interpreting "[flag]CN54" as the snow-lion flag, associated with the >> Free Tibet movement, could be controversial and problematic in the >> extreme. You know how China is. >> >> -- >> Doug Ewell | http://ewellic.org | Thornton, CO 🇺🇸 >> >> >> >
