Richard:
The articles states that China is "the only country [Tintin] visits twice" which presumably refers to Tibet
Yes, I spotted that statement in the article. I wonder if the journalist who wrote the article was simply lazily repeating this bit of inaccurate patriotism from the Chinese publisher's press release. Tibet is indeed counted as part of China if you look in most atlases, but it seems a bit arrogant to not even acknowledge that at the time the book was written Tibet was being brutally annexed by China, and that most Tibetans then (and now, from what I understand) don't regard Tibet as part of China.
Although Hergé doesn't use this non-political Tintin adventure to critcise or refer to the Chinese invasion and occupation, he does seem highly sympathetic towards the Tibetans' monastic culture - a culture that the Chinese army was doing it's best to wipe out at the time the book was written.
Even if you do count Tibet as part of China, China isn't, of course, the only country that Tintin visits twice. Apart from the fictional countries he visits twice (Syldavia, Borduria, San Theodoros), there's India, which he visits in
Cigars of the Pharaoh and in
Tintin in Tibet, en route to Nepal. And there's France, which he visits in
The Calculus Affair and (as you pointed out in a recent thread on this forum, Tregenza) is the location of the flying boat port in the French original of
King Ottokar's Sceptre.
Regarding the question of the book's title in the new Chinese translation, a quick Google search throws up a lot of references to the fact that the Hergé Foundation intervened back in 2001 to prevent the Chinese publishers getting away with changing the title to Tintin in China's Tibet. So presumably the Hergé Foundation or Moulinsart or Hergé's widow have been similarly on the ball this time about making sure the title is correct. You'd hope so, anyway.
