Wow, this map is very interesting and cool! But I must state the obvious: cardinal directions very much lose meaning on this one haha, not even just a little like in some other good candidates :) And yes, we don’t need precise latitudes and longitudes anymore in these days for every-day map use - hence it is even possible to talk about changing to a more “fair” projection - , but looking in a school room at this map and trying to identify with children which direction Mexico is to Cuba becomes non-trivial. This is also a form of sacrifice in this context, which of course is up to discussion.

“This discussion is not a political discussion [but] a scientific discussion, because there is scientific proof so we all have to accept the reality,” he said.

Bit of a weird statement, haha. Of course it is political, the scientific reality is you cannot perfectly map a sphere to two dimensions… The political part is what we agree to sacrifice, and - in my opinion completely fairly - they want to take “relative land area” off the list of sacrifices.

I think you misunderstand the CCP part a bit. This guy used to be a minister of foreign affairs, so he had access to critical, secret information from inner circles of the EU. His boss is now Wang Chuanfu, a member of the CCP. Even if you contest the fact of this having any strategical consequences for the EU, I hope we all agree that this pairing is at minimum: awkward :)