<p><em>Written by John Frank, Center Grove High School, Indiana</em></p>
<p>When Sun Yat‐sen and others established the Republic of China 1912, the nation was divided into five time zones. 1 After completion of the Chinese Communist revolution in 1949, Mao Zedong and the new leaders of China established a different policy. “From five time zones before the revolution, China became just one. As Communist rule extended across the vastness from Tibet in the west to Hainan Island in the east, all the nation’s clocks were adjusted to reflect the new reality of unification. Beijing time now ruled throughout China (except, of course, in Taiwan).” 2 For the past 60 years, all of China has shared a single official time zone. This common national time produces some geographic distortions. For example, at the moment of sunrise in Beijing, when a daily flag raising ceremony takes place in Tiananmen Square, easternmost China has already experienced an hour of daylight. Westernmost China will not share Beijing’s sunrise for another three hours. A unitary national time zone policy has produced<br />
political critics. For example, a number of minority Muslim Uighur citizens of China’s western Xinjiang province do not observe official “Beijing time” but keep their own unofficial time, two hours later than national standard time. Some Uighur people view one national time zone as not only an inconvenience but also as an attempt by the national government to exert its dominance over distant minority peoples. 3 </p>
<ol>
<li><a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2009/0615/1224248850523.html">http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2009/0615/1224248850523.html</a></li>
<li>Michael Dutton, Beijing Time (Harvard University Press, 2008), 16.</li>
<li><a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2009/mar/31/world/fg‐china‐timezone31">http://articles.latimes.com/2009/mar/31/world/fg‐china‐timezone31 </a></li>
</ol>
<p>When Sun Yat‐sen and others established the Republic of China 1912, the nation was divided into five time zones. 1 After completion of the Chinese Communist revolution in 1949, Mao Zedong and the new leaders of China established a different policy. “From five time zones before the revolution, China became just one. As Communist rule extended across the vastness from Tibet in the west to Hainan Island in the east, all the nation’s clocks were adjusted to reflect the new reality of unification. Beijing time now ruled throughout China (except, of course, in Taiwan).” 2 For the past 60 years, all of China has shared a single official time zone. This common national time produces some geographic distortions. For example, at the moment of sunrise in Beijing, when a daily flag raising ceremony takes place in Tiananmen Square, easternmost China has already experienced an hour of daylight. Westernmost China will not share Beijing’s sunrise for another three hours. A unitary national time zone policy has produced<br />
political critics. For example, a number of minority Muslim Uighur citizens of China’s western Xinjiang province do not observe official “Beijing time” but keep their own unofficial time, two hours later than national standard time. Some Uighur people view one national time zone as not only an inconvenience but also as an attempt by the national government to exert its dominance over distant minority peoples. 3 </p>
<ol>
<li><a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2009/0615/1224248850523.html">http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2009/0615/1224248850523.html</a></li>
<li>Michael Dutton, Beijing Time (Harvard University Press, 2008), 16.</li>
<li><a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2009/mar/31/world/fg‐china‐timezone31">http://articles.latimes.com/2009/mar/31/world/fg‐china‐timezone31 </a></li>
</ol>