This so-called international law is often repeated online, with no evidence that random consumer maps have ever been used to resolve a dispute.<p>If official government maps shows a certain boundary it is evidence that the government at some point in time accepted that as fact (or pretended to accept it as fact).<p>Consumer maps are probably meaningless unless the government or local officials were using them and they had no official maps to contradict the unofficial consumer maps. I vaguely recall some embarrassment in India where officials were using unsanctioned maps (but I can&#x27;t find a link).<p>As far as I can tell consumer maps (not used by officials) have never been used in an international court to prove a boundary. They can be, at worst, propaganda. There is not, as far as I can tell, any UN or other international treaty which mandate that any rabdom map is evidence of boundaries.<p>In the Shebaa farms dispute, for example, Israel and UN officials cited official Lebanese military maps as evidence [0].<p>tldr; It is enough for China to police official government maps and the use of maps by officials, without confiscating maps tourists bring in ... unless it&#x27;s all about propaganda to support spurious claims, which of course it is.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Shebaa_farms" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Shebaa_farms</a>