A recent online survey showed that over 80 percent of Chinese people are opposed to setting the translation of China's capital city as "Peking." Instead, they favor the standard Chinese spelling of "Beijing."

The survey, initiated by the China Youth Daily in association with Web site sina.com.cn, features questions about various phenomena in the usage of Romanized Chinese words, or Pinyin.

The spelling of "Peking" is rated one of the most common nonstandard uses of Chinese language. According to some documents, the spelling of "Peking" was decided by westerners for their convenience at a post conference in Shanghai in 1906, but the pronunciation of "Peking" is far from consistent with that of standard Mandarin.

Other nonstandard uses of Chinese, including the overuse of English instead of Chinese spellings on traffic signs and local names and inverting the character order of Chinese names, are also highlighted in the survey.

Some experts have pointed out that "only by preserving its own cultural traditions and nationalism in international communication can a nation speak to the world in an equal voice."