Xinjiang Time

[Luther Ma]

With the restoration of internet to Xinjiang yesterday after a ten  
month hiatus, I would like to make one more plea for Xinjiang Time to  
be included in the tz database. (Last year we discussed Xinjiang Time,  
a semi-official time used primarily by minority ethnic groups in the  
Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China, as well as in some  
official Xinjiang Chinese language publications.)

Although any proposal is better than nothing at this point, I've  
summarized here my preferences and my reasons.

1. That the locations be the already existing Urumqi/Asia and Kashgar/ 
Asia. These already exist in the database and have been the most  
common English spelling on the Internet and on maps for some time.  
(These names correspond closely to the Uyghur pronunciation and are  
probably more commonly used because of the autonomous region status of  
the area. The "q" in Urumqi is pronounced like the "ch' in English.)

2. That the name of the time zone be called Xinjiang Time, abbreviated  
XJT. This nomenclature corresponds word for word with the most common  
usage in Chinese and Uyghur, as well as all references to it I can  
find in English. It would therefore be immediately recognizable by  
users of Xinjiang Time. This would also agree with the recommendations  
in the Theory file.
> 	If there is no common English abbreviation, abbreviate the English

> 		translation of the usual phrase used by native speakers.

URUT for Urumqi Time would be another possibility as it is a  
recognized, perhaps more official term, but not nearly as widely used.

3. That no other location be added (especially with the same latitude  
and longitude) to accommodate the use of Beijing Time (also widely  
used in Xinjiang, esp. by close to 100% of the ethnic Han population).  
The reason for this is two-fold.
	a. It agrees with the recommendations in Theory, Urumqi being quite a  
bit smaller than Beijing
> 	Use the most populous among locations in a country's time zone,

> 		e.g. prefer `Shanghai' to `Beijing'

	 and by definition is redundant.
> 	If all the clocks in a country's region have agreed since 1970,

> 		don't bother to include more than one location

	b. But perhaps more critically, it is an added difficulty to  
implement two zones having the same position on most GUI's. I am  
afraid that GUI developers would choose the more commonly used time  
and that Xinjiang time, although present in the tzdata would be  
swallowed up in the user interface.

4. And lastly, that no effort be made to link the time zone with  
summer time changes that happened in the rest of the country during  
the late eighties, as the local populace, at least to some extent,  
continued to use standard time. If it is, however, desirable to have a  
summer time, I believe the abbreviation XJST would most closely follow  
the recommendations of the Theory file

So these, then, are my suggestions and the reasons why.

Thanks for taking another look into this,
-Luther

PS I have been patching the tzdata for my own use as well as for a  
very small distribution, which I have pasted below in case it is of  
any use to others or in changing the official version.

$ diff -c  tzdata2010j/asia proposedXJT/asia
*** tzdata2010j/asia	2010-05-10 21:07:27.000000000 +0800
--- proposed XJT/asia	2010-05-15 19:08:24.000000000 +0800
***************
*** 390,396 ****
   # Fukang, Kuitun, Kumukuli, Miquan, Qitai, and Turfan.
   Zone	Asia/Urumqi	5:50:20	-	LMT	1928 # or Urumchi
   			6:00	-	URUT	1980 May # Urumqi Time
! 			8:00	PRC	C%sT
   # Kunlun Time
   # West Tibet, including Pulan, Aheqi, Shufu, Shule;
   # West Xinjiang, including Aksu, Atushi, Yining, Hetian, Cele,  
Luopu, Nileke,
--- 390,396 ----
   # Fukang, Kuitun, Kumukuli, Miquan, Qitai, and Turfan.
   Zone	Asia/Urumqi	5:50:20	-	LMT	1928 # or Urumchi
   			6:00	-	URUT	1980 May # Urumqi Time
! 			6:00	-	XJT
   # Kunlun Time
   # West Tibet, including Pulan, Aheqi, Shufu, Shule;
   # West Xinjiang, including Aksu, Atushi, Yining, Hetian, Cele,  
Luopu, Nileke,
***************
*** 462,468 ****
   Zone	Asia/Kashgar	5:03:56	-	LMT	1928 # or Kashi or Kaxgar
   			5:30	-	KAST	1940	 # Kashgar Time
   			5:00	-	KAST	1980 May
! 			8:00	PRC	C%sT


   # From Lee Yiu Chung (2009-10-24):
--- 462,468 ----
   Zone	Asia/Kashgar	5:03:56	-	LMT	1928 # or Kashi or Kaxgar
   			5:30	-	KAST	1940	 # Kashgar Time
   			5:00	-	KAST	1980 May
! 			6:00	-	XJT


   # From Lee Yiu Chung (2009-10-24):