China is waging war on Western names for buildings and places
It wants to put a stop to “worship of foreign things”
CHINA’S SOUTHERNMOST province of Hainan is a tropical tourist-magnet of white-sand beaches, mountains and rainforests. Posh resorts line the island’s shore. It is also on the front lines of a culture war. In June Hainan’s government published a list of 53 places and buildings, including many hotels, with names that “worship foreign things and toady to foreign powers”. It said these names must be “cleaned up and rectified”—ie, changed.
This article appeared in the China section of the print edition under the headline “Nominal confidence”
From the June 29th 2019 edition
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