Letter to Tom Pursglove MP

7th February 2023

Hi Tom/Edward

Good afternoon. My name is Alex Eales from Runvisual (UK) Ltd.

I would like to arrange a meeting, either by phone or in person with Tom Pursglove at his earliest convenience to discuss a matter of importance to us as a local small business in Corby.

Runvisual (UK) Ltd supplies 20000+ world globes to schools each year and has done so for many years.

In the last few years, as has recently been highlighted on the BBC news website, Chinese made globes and maps have flooded the UK market. This is an issue as the Chinese government subsidises the production of maps and globes, but mandates that they have a Chinese government approved map. This may show China as larger and as occupying more lands and territories than are recognised by the UN or western governments. China is effectively using globes and maps as a form of soft power. They are extremely cheap and enticing to schools, parents and teachers across the country.

I’m sure that you will agree that the potential use in schools of such maps and globes, with incorrect/unrecognised cartography, is deeply concerning. If children are taught using these incorrect globes, they will grow up thinking that they are correct, and currently there is no curriculum guidance to tell schools or teachers of this problem.

We are looking to contact the author who wrote the article on the BBC website recently, which was regarding the disputed South China Sea.

We would very much like your support in highlighting this issue in any way that you can. We thought that this might be of interest to you as problems with the Chinese state have been in the news a lot recently.

Kindest regards

Alex Eales

Sales manager