Back in the early 90's (in the US) I had a friend who was a college student from China. In the common area of her dorm there was a huge wall-size Rand-McNally map of the world. We were looking it over.

"There's China" I said. "And there's Taiwan."

"You know Taiwan is really not that big." she said.

"What do you mean?"

"Map makers show it larger than it really is in order to exaggerate its importance."

I was a little weirded out by that idea. This girl was pretty intelligent, she seemed to know some math and logical thinking. She was in the process of becoming a CPA.

For better or worse I responded with practical analysis: "How would that even work? You and I could go buy maps right now for navigating ships and airplanes, those would have to be accurate in order to function. We could compare them to this one and if they are noticeably different we could complain and the company that made the map would lose face. Why would Rand-McNally give a shit about the political importance of Taiwan anyway, enough to risk their own credibility?"

"They just do. All map makers do this."

She would not be convinced.