Tibetan scholars operating in China have gotten the Chinese government's support to push for Internationally renaming Mt. Everest as Qomolangma, its Tibetan name.

The days of empires and overt colonialism have long past but the Earth's highest peak has retained its anglicized name, complained Gelek, an established Tibetan scholar with China's Tibetology Centre in Beijing.
"It is time for the Western world to respect us Tibetans by recognizing the highest peak on Earth by its Tibetan name, Qomolangma," he says.

I think that's fine. As soon as China respects Tibetans by recognizing it once more as an independent nation, I have no problem with respecting them by changing the name.

Well, yeah, I do. Aside from the fact that other Tibetans call it Chomolungma, the Nepalese call it something else, and so forth, there's no reason to consider the name as any more arbitrary a label on a slab of rock than what the British applied to it.

Certainly, if I were conversing with Tibetans, or visiting their country, I would try to be polite and and use their name for the peak. Just like I might use "Roma" when -- well, when in Rome.

But for the Chinese to back such an effort, out of "respect" to Tibet is to conjure up a much larger pile of ... material than even the mighty Qomolangma.

Filed under :: Geopolitical Brouhaha
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This story has changed since I first read it - Originally the Chinese wanted it known by THEIR name for the mountain... appearently the new leadership saw how bad *that* looked as PR...