Occasionally I will register with or want to order products from a website only to find that they list something called ‘Taiwan, Province of China’ in their country list. Last week I got a newsletter from the Mises Institute about their new Bastiat Collection, a two volume set of the complete English translations of Frederic Bastiat’s writings. I was eager to order a set, as his writings have long been on my wish list but were a bit inconvenient to get previously. I was surprised to find that the Mises Institute also listed ‘Taiwan, Province of China’ in their online store. I sent a complaint to them and got back a very positive response a few days later, and quite emphatically at that:
Thank-you for bringing this matter to our attention. We have finally isolated the file and changed the Taiwan entry in our new e-commerce software’s database. We at the Ludwig von Mises Institute for Austrian Economics do not support the government of People’s Republic of China, or their policies, either directly or indirectly. Having Taiwan listed as “Taiwan Province of China” was nothing more than an oversight on our behalf as we continue to fix and customize our new software to our specific needs.
I couldn’t help but to support such a response by immediately ordering the Bastiat Collection as well as Freedom Under Siege by Ron Paul.
The Kanye West web site also lists ‘Taiwan, Province of China’ in their registration system but they have not responded to or corrected this after two weeks.
Wow! What a great response!