Earlier this year, two Japanese scholars were fined a total of 80,000 yuan (10,000 U.S. dollars) and deported for collecting materials and coordinates of an airport and water facilities in the western Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
The scholars arrived in Beijing in September, 2005, with a Japanese tour group. They broke away from the group a week later and hired two translators in Hetian, a southern prefecture in Xinjiang.
They set up a Global Positioning System (GPS) on the roof of a local family, acquaintances of one of the translators, and collected geographical coordinates of the Hetian airport, water facilities and highways.
According to the Xinjiang Surveying and Mapping Bureau, the equipment the two Japanese scholars used maps data to within 20 centimeters, exact enough for military use.
The two scholars, who worked for the Japanese geographical survey intelligence institute, were on an ecological research program with Xinjiang University but the permission paper expired in 2001.
China to tighten control over foreign surveying, mapping
- Thread starter Shen Nong
- Start date
I think this is bithcy for Chinas economy and unnessecity paranoi from the Beging side. As the mapping and survey are close to my shop, I can tell that nothing prevents western enterprises to invest china more than inaccurate survey data and co-ordinates. The same policy was practiced in USSR were the law prevent anything below 25m accuracy of roads, bridges, airports and stuff....and now when the old infrastructure needs updating, its nigthmarish to start any sort of construction whent eh survey data are 18th century level....not only for western firms doing the job but to russian (or chinses) themselves.
Bad direction, bad direction....modern technology makes millimeter level mapping aviable but reactioninst politics keep us stall in the medieval
Bad direction, bad direction....modern technology makes millimeter level mapping aviable but reactioninst politics keep us stall in the medieval
D
Deleted member 675
Guest
Absolutely ridiculous. I'd heard about this before, but it still amazes me that the government are so paranoid that they don't want ANYONE to have detailed maps of the countryside.
Really, really silly....
Really, really silly....
eecsmaster
Junior Member
breaking away from a tour group and taking GPS maps in Xin Jiang? That sure sounds normal. I mean seriously, what's in Xin Jiang except yaks and possible 2nd Arty field positions? I mean, who could possibly be interested in such a place? A place where sat overflight is rare and the population thin? A perfect place for you to lob a few ICBMs at that sonafabitch who just nuked your @ss?
Talking about silly....
Talking about silly....
Ender Wiggin
Junior Member
I think it wouldve been fined had they informed Beijing first, in a country as worried as China about foreign attack with weapons accurate to the militmeter you could say its best not to be too careful.
Violet Oboe
Junior Member
One could become tired to talk about the same old story time and time again. The japanese are simply notoriously insensitive about their common history with their neighbours in Asia.
Imperial Japan ran a secret campaign between 1915 and circa 1922 that was aimed at surveying potential raw material sources (e.g. coal, oil, multiple ores) and suitable lines of transportation for these goods. Of course the japanese ´scientists´ and ´explorers´ kept chinese government(s) about their sinister intentions completely in the dark. The entire campaign fitted neatly in the long term japanese plans of establishing an asian empire under the total domination of Japan (later openly defined in 1942 as ´Greater Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere´). During the occupation of large parts of China 1931/37-1945 Japan used the precious data of the earlier ´expeditions´ for mining coal and ores in the occupied territories (often using forced labour)and consequently this kind of unscrupulous exploitation was not forgotten by the chinese people.
Indeed the reactions of the chinese government seem to be guided sometimes by paranoia even in the 21.st century but we should also know where the very real roots of this behaviour are coming from before we judge China only in view of our own prejudices.
Imperial Japan ran a secret campaign between 1915 and circa 1922 that was aimed at surveying potential raw material sources (e.g. coal, oil, multiple ores) and suitable lines of transportation for these goods. Of course the japanese ´scientists´ and ´explorers´ kept chinese government(s) about their sinister intentions completely in the dark. The entire campaign fitted neatly in the long term japanese plans of establishing an asian empire under the total domination of Japan (later openly defined in 1942 as ´Greater Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere´). During the occupation of large parts of China 1931/37-1945 Japan used the precious data of the earlier ´expeditions´ for mining coal and ores in the occupied territories (often using forced labour)and consequently this kind of unscrupulous exploitation was not forgotten by the chinese people.
Indeed the reactions of the chinese government seem to be guided sometimes by paranoia even in the 21.st century but we should also know where the very real roots of this behaviour are coming from before we judge China only in view of our own prejudices.
yeas, aranoi always tends to focus on some historical 'evidence', usually (as in this case) from generations ago and whit fracile logic...but that doesent take away the fact that such decisions can long term be really harm full for chinese modernisation and progress. Accurate survey data is the lifeline of moderns construction, infanstructure and city planning and those elements are in otherhand, the basis of modern society.