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Michael Reynolds / EPA file
Chinese cyclists pass by an enormous advertisement for Coca-Cola in Beijing.
BEIJING – When Coca-Cola began using high-tech systems to help its logistics in Yunnan Province, China, little did it know it would run afoul of that country’s strict “illegal mapping” laws.
Coke? Spying on the Chinese?
Not so fast, say Chinese officials, who have downplayed the charges from Yunnan province that Coca-Cola was collecting sensitive geographical information using handheld GPS devices.
An officer with the agency charged with safeguarding sensitive geographic information denied that the case against Coke is so serious that it involved the powerful Ministry of State Security, as was previously been reported.
“The case is regional, just a branch of Coca Cola,” said an official from the National Administration of Surveying, Mapping and Geoinformation (NASMG), who asked to remain anonymous.
She added that China does not hold the soft drink giant in contempt.
“We also have to protect our international companies,” she said. “Coca-Cola is a company that has been an important part of China.”
A local issue
The controversy erupted after officials in the southern province of Yunnan announced an investigation into charges that Coca-Cola was illegally collecting information on secret areas using handheld GPS devices.
The case was just one of 21 instances cited in an annual report involving companies allegedly doing illegal surveying in the mountainous southern province of Yunnan which borders Laos, Burma and Vietnam, a tourist destination famous for stunning vistas of jagged snow-capped mountains and rivers.
Gong Yinyong, a spokesman for NASMG, stressed it is still too early to conclude that Coco-Cola has violated Chinese law, and said the investigation was being handled by its Yunnan bureau.
“We appointed our Yunnan bureau to handle the investigation,” Gong said. “The accusation against Coca-Cola Yunnan plant was originally reported to our Yunnan bureau.”
However, the other officer who spoke anonymously with NBC and works in NASMG’s law enforcement department, confirmed that the agency has been tougher on foreigners and foreign companies in recent years.
Cracking down on foreigners
China has been tightening its regulations on the surveying and mapping of its geography, in particular by foreign organizations and individuals. Each year, NASMG picks 10 samples of the most common and important violations and makes them public. Since 2009, at least one case has involved a foreigner every year.
In 2011, the bureau fined an American man for using handheld GPS illegally in Xinjiang Province and confiscated his equipment. The man had collected and stored 90,000 data points about Chinese geographic locations as he traveled from Beijing to Xinjiang. He claimed the mapping was part of a plan to open a tour company.
Chinese law prohibits foreigners from “arbitrarily carrying out surveying and mapping” without government permission.
A spokesperson for Coca-Cola sent NBC an official statement, saying that it is cooperating with the investigation to make sure that it coordinates the delivery of its drinks legally.
“Every day, Coca Cola’s trucks deliver beverages to thousands of local retail outlets,” the written statement says. “Some of our local bottling plants in China have adopted logistics solutions to improve our customer service levels and fuel efficiency.”
The mapping systems used by bottlers are commercially available in China through authorized local suppliers, the company added.
Military fears
On Thursday a story in the South China Morning Post quoted a mapping expert who suggested Beijing was sensitive about the use of GPS devices by foreigners because such geographical data could be used by guided missiles to strike key military facilities.
Professor Weng Jingling, an expert in geographical information systems at Beijing University, said the government’s caution would be necessary to protect military facilities.
“A GPS device can pinpoint the exact coordinates, which a satellite picture cannot provide,” he said.
NBC’s Amy Langfield has contributed to the story.
Leave a Comment:
Do you seriously think that a satelite that can read the date on a dime from that distance can't read the exact location too? Gps uses SATELITES to give you a geographical location. SATELITES!!!!
hehe. yeah, and google map gazers have spotted secret Chinese military installations - including sea tunnel entrance to underground ports... this type of anti-mapping regulation - and China is not the only country that engages in it - is idiotic and futile. So are US rules barring people from taking photos of infrastructure, enforced by some cities and states.. yeah, 'cause you can't see all you need to see in google map or bing too.
You can tell to the nearest foot how long a yacht is in a harbor using google Earth. Moving the cursor over the google Earth map tells you the altitude at the cursor. Maybe the Great Bamboo Firewall keeps the Chinese from knowing that?
Maybe the US should do the same to Chinese who come to this country and take pictures of our airports and highways, as well as our cruise ports and downtown shopping areas. You can bet your butt they are compiling detailed maps for military use should the occasion ever arise. Every high tech system the Chinese have was stolen from the US or Britain and sold to Pakistan and Russia where possible.
We are an open society
that is why we must keep vigilant the watch on our so called friendly neighbors.
China is only in it for China
they would send a turd here if they thought it could be sold
they are afraid that we will come in and destroy what they have
lol we have so many detailed maps of the USA sold in almost every store.
who would have thought that could hurts 40 years down the road
Their blatant use of others copyrights along with retailers like Sears holding who make knockoffs of popular tools that are made in china.
that is one of the other threats
That is the one area we need to get tough on along with the unsafe foodstuffs they produce for export.
If we actually raised the standards on imports and hold them to as high astandard as we do here.
then and maybe then we would achieve equity
There is no way you are not chinese writing sentences like that.
...As pointed out above, nuclear tipped missiles don't rely on tourists with GPS. Back in the late '60s the Soviets issued a map of the Soviet Union with cities and other spots as much as ten miles off from where they really were. In 1941 that might have fooled the Germans... but current mapping from space well within a meter...
He claimed that he mapped 2,000 miles of terrain because he planned to open a tour company? For the most part, the Chinese rules are paranoid and ridiculous, but this guy's explanation is hilarious.
If they were mapping missile silo's they'd have a point, mapping local stores that sell coke, not really.
What could China be hiding?
Possible terrorist training camps?
Secret long range missile silos?
Extermination camps where millions of people who disappear without a trace every year end up in?
Its just land. If there wasn't a secret being protected then why are the Chinese making a complaint?
Mainly, it's because paranoid people in their military think that others (including terrorists) will use the data to bomb them.. it's not so much what they're hiding as what they're afraid others will do to them.
It is an archaic law that is now used as nothing more than to flame the "vilification of foreigners" fire that plagues China. Anyone with a lick of sense would tell you that to label hand held GPS mapping as a security risk, with today's technology, would be like claiming a guy with a glass against the wall was a "listening device".
As they said, at least one case a year is listed as involving a foreigner - when foreigners make up 1/10th of 1% of the population.
It was this mentality that allowed Yang Rui to cause such a stir in China when he went off on ALL foreigners as being trash, after a single incident in Beijing.
Any foreigner who has spent any real time here in China will tell you - The "evils of foreigners" have been indoctrinated into the people so much, that it is now simply a part of the culture. We are always walking on egg shells here.
I can bet that the amount of coverage of THIS page of the story is indiscernible compared to what was pushed into the minds of the people here when it first came out.
The Chinese and CPAC together for eternity!
chinese governemnt are such morons. Dont they know US satellites already mapped and marked where nukes are going to drop?
"Professor Weng Jingling, an expert in geographical information systems at Beijing University, said the government’s caution would be necessary to protect military facilities.
“A GPS device can pinpoint the exact coordinates, which a satellite picture cannot provide,” he said."
What kind of a professor is this guy? Expert MY ASS.
I have extensive GPS mapping from my bike tour of The Yunnan. Funny, I got most of my mapping from Google Maps and Lonely Planet. I did also download a map which was in turn used on my handheld GPS which was super accurate, more accurate than my maps of Thailand. This begs the question; Just what is Thailand hiding?