The customs bureau at the port of Wenjindu under the Shenzhen Customs District in Guangdong Province recovered 264,983 incorrect world maps in English from the Netherlands and returned them to China on January 17, an employee surnamed Wang from the customs' press office told the Global Times on Monday.
The maps were printed by a printing company in Dongguan, Guangdong.
"Those maps jeopardized China's territorial integrity and will be destroyed soon," Wang said.
"This is the first case of maps with boundary mistakes at Wenjindu port. We will carry out stricter supervision and improve the awareness of customs officers," said Wang who would not say which boundary mistakes had been made by the printers.
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Customs authorities in Qingdao, East China's Shandong Province, destroyed 30,000 incorrect world maps on March 25 with problems including rendering Taiwan as a country and wrong depictions of the China-India border.
The Chinese government published a notice strengthening the import and export of Chinese maps in February, highlighting regulations on domestically produced overseas publications containing maps.
The notice stipulates that maps that do not comply with China's regulations are prohibited from being printed, imported or exported.
Maps are the main form of representing national territory, which is serious for its political, scientific and legal significance, the notice emphasized.
Problematic maps will confuse the international community about China's territory or even be hyped by those with ulterior motives, according to the notice.
This article originally appeared on the Global Times website.
