For English, which is a much easier language, it would be insulting if Americans told China how to spell their names and would arouse strong anti American sentiment due to the history of bullying at the hands of Western imperialist. Therefore, it is best to leave it to the Chinese people to choose the names of all US Presidents and avoid meddling in the internal affairs of China.

Just let the MFA with its superb linguistic team manage all language issues and the matter will rest.

To do otherwise would create chaos and might even lead other countries to think that they could choose their own Chinese names, like the South Koreans did with their hue and cry over the name of Seoul, which is Hancheng

We Chinese know best aobama is the only correct way and nobody should challenge it. using oubama would confuse the chinese people – we have a tradition of making sure that foreigners names use special characters to distinguish them from Chinese.

This is only understandable by Chinese what we call
夏夷之别, 正名 or separating the ethnic groups by giving correct names.

The question is Who Decides? (pun not intended)

I submit that China should adapt to the modern age and recognize that individual countries know best how to translate their own names.

Bai Gong means that the White House is not some every normal ordinary white house but it is THE White House. We do not have articles or capitalisation systems in the Chinese language, so could you English speakers please be a little more considerate and allow us to make some variations? Besides, I do not see how living in a “palace” affects any notions on democracy. What’s more, “gong” does not necessarily translate into “palace”. Also, we have expressions like the House of Windsor in English. You can always relate “house” to a king or a prince or anything that’s not elected.

If I understand your article correctly, we should still be saying Peking, Bombay, Burma, Mukden, Formosa, Ivory Coast in English..

There are heaps of mistranslations, some insulting, floating around in the Chinese media so it is good to see countries like the Republic of Korea and the US of A finally take a position on this matters, trivial as they may be.

You have got to be kidding..

Should governments around the world surrender and let the Chinese press decide how to label their institutions and leaders?

The official translation for White House (白屋) means “white house” in Chinese. How is that ridiculous? Translating it as 白宫, which means “White Palace” is not only ridiculous, it misleads people about the nature of a Democratic system, where the head of state is a public servant, elected by the people, not a king in a palace.

Maybe the English press should change the translation of 中南海 into the “New Forbidden City”