Whenever I read a Chinese novel in a fairly modern setting, countries line the US and japan are given some other name. For example, America is often just called „bald eagle country“, but why is that?
If I remember novels after a certain year will have fake names or pseudonyms for other countries and even real life locations and cities within China. There was apparently a regulation that forbids mention of real life places in novels Due note that my knowledge is vague and regulations might have since changed
If, they use real places and give some 'this place is actually shit, the people are blablabla' I'm pretty sure all the red flags of --ist are gonna get thrown. The same thing with westerners when they use asian stereotype whenever like they think it's representative of asian.
Cuz the CCP refuses to recognize any country apart from China and so only oblique references to such existences can be made.
Political stuff probably, you know, they need to make their idea and opinion about a said country be reached and heard loud and clear but make it seem like a misunderstanding or a slip to avoid the trouble and problems that may arise born from such personal views XD
I'm not sure why there's so much confusion in this thread, but it's because the writer is trying to avoid getting censored. This applies to China as well, and authors will often avoid mentioning the name of the city or province or even country even when all the readers know what's being referred to. Generally it's a nonissue to name different countries but they're just acting on the safe side. I've read a number of books which aren't at all shy about naming names.
It's also odd seeing Beijing written as "Capital City". On the flip side, historical novels tend to not do this kind of thing so everything looks proper.