FW: Beijing Time?

[Olson, Arthur David (NIH/NCI) [E]]

I'm forwarding this message from Emma Baillie, who is not on the time
zone mailing list. Those of you who are on the list should direct
replies appropriately.

(Emma Baillie: within...
	ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub/tzcode2006n.tar.gz
...there's a "Theory" file explaining the principles behind naming
zones. Shanghai is used because it's the most populous city--at least by
some measures--in the time zone of interest. Note that the eastern
United States time zone where I live is known as "America/New_York" and
not "America/Washington"--we're not singling out China for different
treatment.)

				--ado 

-----Original Message-----
From: Emma Baillie [mailto:ebaillie at aconex.com] 
Sent: Monday, October 23, 2006 2:19 AM
To: tz at lecserver.nci.nih.gov
Subject: Beijing Time?

My workplace has recently included data form the tz database into our
web services, which are used in various different countries around the
world including (recently) China.

Our Chinese customers are quite unhappy about the fact that their
timezone is specified as "Asia/Shanghai" not "Asia/Beijing". As one
customer commented:

"Every one knows whole china has only one time zone which was officially
named Beijing Time Zone, My client told me that Chinese people really
can not understand why we missed our Capital City Time Zone on the list.

They think it is disrespectful."

I see from the official Chinese government website, that this also
refers to the Chinese time zone as "Beijing Time"

http://english.gov.cn/2005-08/25/content_26048.htm.

I'm wondering if there is any reason (other than historical) to continue
to refer to the time zone in China as "Asia/Shanghai". Should it not be
updated to reflect current Chinese usage?

Of course, in my own particular instance I can simply change it in our
application (and will!) But this seems like a change which would be more
generally useful.

thanks

emma baillie