Originally Posted by
kaka
or Roma and Rome.... I dont quite understand why they are different as it's the same set of alphabets, unlike, say Peking..... and my belief is to use the system the local government use, except for Peking and Canton. but that's totally personal.
Two different philosophy. The Taiwan system is based on the ease of pronunciation of the West, in short, easier for English-speaking people to pronounce even thought it probably sounds nothing like the Chinese city (like Canton = Guangzhou)
The system China uses now is based on transliteration: i.e., train English-speaking people how to pronounce it right, in Chinese.