Is China trying to attract world's attention towards Tibetan side of Mt Everest?
By Satya Priya BN Published on 10 May 2020 10:32 AM GMT
Blurb: Summit of Mount Everest sits exactly on the border between Nepal and Tibet; officially, the Tibet Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China. Recently, China installed 5G network on the Tibetan side of Everest, called as Qomolangma originally
The world was taken by surprise when the official website of China Global Television Network (CGTN) has published a tweet with pictures of Mount Everest and explicitly calling it Mount Qomolangma. The tweet states “An extraordinary sun halo was spotted Friday in the skies over Mount #Qomolangma, also known as Mount Everest, the world's highest peak located in China's #Tibet Autonomous Region.
Netizens from India and Nepal have expressed their anger about this tweet and asserted that Mount Everest is in Nepal and not in China.
Some expressed their anguish on this tweet by stating
“...the world’s highest peak located in China’s Tibet...” Really bummed we’ve been taught to believe Everest is in Nepal all these years. Thanks, CGTN
Some questioned the Nepalese government on this..."Mount #Qomolangma, also known as Mount Everest, the world's highest peak located in China's #Tibet Autonomous Region." What the hell is this,
@PradeepgyawaliK @PM_Nepal @MofaNepal ?
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Newsmeter found that this is NOT the first time China has used the name Mt Qomolangma for Mt Everest. Upon searching, we found a news report by CGTN in March, 2020 which states that China has cancelled expeditions on the north side of Mount Qomolangma, also known as Mount Everest, during the spring climbing season of 2020 due to global spread of Covid-19.
According to several Chinese media reports, Chinese marked the location of Mount Qomolangma. the world's highest peak, on their map more than 280 years ago, Westerners today continue to refer to the peak as Mount Everest, rather than Tibetans' Goddess Qomolangma, the peak's original name.
http://en.people.cn/200211/19/eng20021119_107017.shtml
They even claim that Mount Everest is situated near the border with Tibet.
https://www.topchinatravel.com/china-attractions/mt-everest.htm
http://www.china.org.cn/english/culture/49094.htm
The media reports even say that the name Mt. Everest is popularly used in western countries but not so accepted by Tibetans and Chinese.
The Tibetan name for Mount Everest is Qomolangma. It is also popularly romanised as Chomolungma and as Jo-mo-glang-ma or Jomo Langma. In 2002, newspaper, Chinese People’s Daily, published an article making a case against the use of "Mount Everest" in English, insisting that the mountain should be referred to as Mount "Qomolangma", based on the official form of the local Tibetan name.
The article argued that British colonialists were not the “first discoverers” of the world’s highest mountain, as it had been known to the Tibetans and mapped by the Chinese as "Qomolangma" since at least 1719.
In the early 1960s, the Nepalese government gave an official Nepali name for Mount Everest, that is Sagarmāthā or Sagar-Matha. The name comes from the local use of Vedic, sagar means "sky" while māthā means "head", the meaning of " Sagarmāthā is "the forehead of the sky".
Baburam Acharya, a prominent Nepali historian, published his article in 1938, for the first time pointing out that the region has always called this peak "Sagarm".
https://www.topchinatravel.com/mount-everest/naming-of-mount-everest.htm
During further research, we found a report by National Geographic, which states that the summit of Mount Everest sits exactly on the border between Nepal and Tibet; officially, the Tibet Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China.
As this controversy was raised, South Asia’s Multimedia News Agency, ANI, has published a report about how experts clarify China was trying to consolidate its position in Tibet by highlighting Mt. Everest on the Tibetan side. According to this report, experts clarified that Nepal and China had signed a border dispute resolution agreement in 1960 according to which it was decided that Mount Everest will be divided, and southern part of it will belong to Nepal and Northern part to Tibet Autonomous Region which China claims as its own.
Though a majority of the tourism and expeditions on Mount Everest take place in Nepal, recently China is developing the Tibetan side of Everest with help of technology. It has installed 5G network at their side of Everest.
And also, sent surveyors aiming to remeasure the height of Mt Everest
Though the summit of Mount Everest borders Nepal and Tibet, China seems to have trying hard to highlight Tibetan side of Everest.
