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In media reports, we often encounter titles like this:

"China's Tibet to reward tips on 'terror attacks'"



"China's Xinjiang to ban burqas in public"

"Winter fishing kicks off in NW China's Xinjiang"

"Scenery of Lake Namtso in China's Tibet"



This type of title, with a place name preceded by "China's" is common, whether in domestic or foreign media, though my distinct impression is that it occurs more often in Chinese foreign language publications and in foreign publications that are relying heavily on Chinese news service material.

After decades of exposure to this usage, it still strikes me as somewhat unusual. For example, "America's Philadelphia" or "the United States' Cleveland" or "USA's Texas" would certainly draw attention if they ever occurred in an article.

Since I first noticed this usage with reference to Xinjiang and Tibet years ago, I thought that it might have something to do with China's anxiety over its ownership of these late acquired pieces of peripheral territory. So I started to do Google searches on "China's X", where "X" is the name of a province, region, or city. Although, when I began, I certainly did not intend to cover all of China's provinces and regions, I became so intrigued by the results as I was compiling them that, by the time I had finished, I had probably included all, or nearly all, of them. I have also included some major cities for comparison, and one tiny island.

Google hits for:

"China's Hainan" 554,000

"China's Sichuan" 359,000

"China's Shandong" 355,000

"China's Xinjiang" 350,000

"China's Guangdong" 290,000

"China's Yunnan" 290,000

"China's Shanghai" 263,000

"China's Zhejiang" 253,000

"China's Hong Kong" 222,000

"China's Jiangsu" 179,000

"China's Henan" 163,000

"China's Fujian" 148,000

"China's Tibet" 143,000

"China's Anhui" 138,000

"China's Hunan" 121,000

"China's Guangxi" 120,000

"China's Hubei" 113,000

"China's Hebei" 110,000

"China's Dalian" 106,000

"China's Inner Mongolia" 105,000

"China's Taiwan" 101,000

"China's Liaoning" 95,300

"China's Shaanxi" 90,900

"China's Gansu" 89,000

"China's Heilongjiang" 84,800

"China's Shanxi" 78,500

"China's Jilin" 74,600

"China's Guizhou" 69,500

"China's Jiangxi" 68,900

"China's Chongqing" 68,500

"China's Nanjing" 65,000

"China's Qinghai" 63,500

"China's Beijing" 59,800

"China's South Tibet" 54,100

"China's Guangzhou" 47,300

"China's Tianjin" 39,900

"China's Hangzhou" 34,500

"China's Ningxia" 31,300

"China's Harbin" 29,800

"China's Xiamen" 24,600

"China's Qingdao" 22,000

"China's Wuhan" 20,400

"China's Diaoyu" 18,700

"China's Xi'an" 18,200

"China's Urumqi" 14,100

"China's Changsha" 11,200

"China's Suzhou" 8,770

"China's Zhengzhou" 8,180

"China's Ningbo" 6,490

"China's Macao" 5,260

"China's Hefei" 5,130

"China's Sanya" 4,750

"China's Jinan" 4,400

"China's Arunachal Pradesh" 3,740

"China's Taiyuan" 3,690

"China's Wenzhou" 3,660

"China's Tsingtao" 2,620

"China's Haikou" 2,420

"China's Lhasa" 1,450

"China's Senkaku" 393

As I was processing these figures and the list grew longer, it appeared that the number of ghits was directly relevant to political, demographic, economic, and cultural factors. Although the populations of Xinjiang and Tibet are relatively small, they are of great importance politically and economically (resources). Diaoyu is an example of a place with 0 population, yet tremendous political significance because it is claimed by Japan, China, and Taiwan. "China's Senkaku" ("Senkaku" is the Japanese name for the islands that China calls "Diaoyu") does occur (the least amount by far of any place name sampled) but almost always in expressions such as "China's Senkaku claim(s) / gas offer / flip-flops / policies," etc. Hainan tops the list because it is a desirable tourist destination, with the more popular resort town of Sanya besting the capital of Haikou.

In assessing the significance of the above figures, we also have to take into account the fact that some occurrences of "China's X" are not the result of an attempt to identify "X" as belonging to China, but rather as defining a matter pertaining to "X" as an issue for China, e.g., "China's Hong Kong dilemma", "China's Taiwan policy", "China's South Tibet ambition", and so forth. A finer grained analysis would separate off this latter type of occurrence.

Incidentally, while "China's South Tibet" often is part of an extended phrase such as "China's South Tibet ambition", in some cases it is part of an overt claim or recognition that it belongs to China. In the eyes of its southern neighbor, the so-called "South Tibet" is Arunachal Pradesh, the northeasternmost of India's 29 states. Surprisingly, while "China's Arunachal Pradesh" is usually part of extended phrases such as "China's Arunachal Pradesh fixation" and "China's Arunachal Pradesh claim", it sometimes stands as an assertion or recognition of Chinese ownership. Consequently, it is ironic that a Chinese smartphone maker just a couple of days ago tacitly recognized "South Tibet" as Arunachal Pradesh:

"Xiaomi shows Arunachal is in India at handset launch, triggers anger in China"

Another consideration is the sheer insecurity over whether readers realize that "X" belongs to or is located within China. Consequently, to be on the safe side, authors and editors, and particularly headline writers, will tend to put "China's" before "X" far more often than we are accustomed to for places in America and other places with which we are more familiar. In this way, "X" is clearly stamped as being a part of China — but sometimes that is a consciously political statement too.

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