Chinese Standard Time

Categories: Time zones | China

Certain regions of eastern Asia, including Greater China, observe a time zone eight hours ahead of UTC (UTC+8), and currently do not observe daylight saving time. The time zone observed in mainland China is known as Chinese Standard Time, and is in the same time zone as the Australian Western Standard Time, Chungyuan Standard Time, Hong Kong Time, Macau Standard Time and Singapore Standard Time.

Effects of a uniform time zone

Sunset in the US is normally between 5pm and 7pm in a typical region on a typical day, but because all of China observes the same time zone, in the far west the Sun usually does not set until past nine o'clock, while the far east commonly experiences sunrises before 5am. If the same rule were used in the United States, then California and Florida would observe the same time, giving huge discrepancies. It is joked that having a single national time is an extreme example of implementing communism's egalitarian beliefs in the People's Republic of China. On the other hand, if people are used to it, they might not see any problem, and it makes coordination more efficient. One never needs to mention the time zone, as it is needed in e.g. the United States.

Time zones of the Republic of China

In 1912 the Central Observatory in Peking (now Beijing) divided the Republic of China into five time zones, from UTC+5.5 to UTC+8.5:

• UTC+5.5: Kunlun Time Zone (崑崙時區) (Western part of Sinkiang and western part of Tibet)
• UTC+6: Sinkiang-Tibet Time Zone (新藏時區) (Sinkiang and Tibet)
• UTC+7: Kansu-Szechuan Time Zone (隴蜀時區) (Central China: Kansu, Szechuan, Ningsia, Shensi, etc.)
• UTC+8: Chungyuan Standard Time Zone (中原標準時區) (coastal China)
• UTC+8.5: Changpai Time Zone (長白時區) (northeast China)

The time zones were ratified in 1939 in the standard time conference of the Ministry of Interior of the Executive Yuan.

Taiwan independence and time zone

Some Taiwan independence supporters have semi-seriously suggested advancing Taiwan's time zone by one hour as a symbolic assertion of Taiwan's separation from China. However, critics have pointed out that it would instead symbolize a reversion to Japanese colonialism, since Japan Standard Time is one hour ahead of Chinese Standard Time, even though Taiwan's time was different from that of mainland Japan's while Taiwan was under Japanese occupation from 1895 to 1945.

Since the comunist party created the new goverment, only 2 standard time zone have been ste recently. One is the Beijing standard time (Based on the UTC+8), the other is Wulumuqi time (Based on the UTC +10). At 1980's, the goverment wanted to setup a daylight saving time, but failed after 2 years because of many problems.fr:Chinese Standard Time