U.S. Passport Conspiracy

My wife, who was born/raised in Taipei, Taiwan has spent the last few years mucking her way through the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization process. Earlier this year she finally recieved U.S. citizenship and applied for a passport.
A couple days ago a lady from the State Department called to make sure my wife had no intention of travelling to China, because they wouldn't allow her in if her passport said Taiwan. This lady gave my wife the option, however, to have her place of birth read Taipei, China, which would then allow her to travel to China on her U.S. passport.
She was a little insulted, as many Taiwanese are quite proud of their "independence" and as she has no reason to go to China, she left her country of birth listed as Taiwan.
Doesn't it seem a little strange that she was actually given the option?

yea i never heard anything like that ever......thats just dumb by the way.....i think people from taiwan can go to china

Yes, it seems very strange. I'm not familiar with passport protocol so maybe it isn't unusual for them to do that but it does seem odd. I'll be curious to hear if others have had a similar experience.

Jemison

A passport is an Official State Document, it does seem strange that the US government allows Taiwan to be listed when the "Official" name of the place is currently Taipei, China. Taiwan is not officially independent.

The passport office staff pointed out the problems she would encounter as a result but they did it anyways.

Can someone from Turkey list their place of birth as either Constantinople or Istanbule?

[edit on 10/9/2004 by Gools]

Update

Two of my wifes Taiwanese friends recently got their US citizenships, applied for passports, and received the same phone call from the State Department. It seems the US government would much rather their passports which reference Taiwan read China instead. Yet, we're bound by law to defend Taiwan and we openly support her democracy. I guess we're firmly on both sides of that particular fence as well.

I wonder if those who were born in parts of Kashmir get to choose between Pakistan and India as their nation of birth?? I think this is just some policy enacted to appease China a bit.

It's not appeasing China IMO, because it's not mandatory. It's giving people the option. It's no different than what they do in Isreal, Cuba, and some other places- giving a removable stamp in the passport so you have freedom of travel in parts of the world where you otherwise wouldn't if your passport contained something that part of the world didn't like. Many Americans from Taiwan would like to travel to China on their US passport, so the State Dept is giving them the ability to do so. If anything, China should be pissed off because we've provided a workaround for one of their own policies.