I’d ask for some of whatever you’re smoking that makes you say all of this in response to a map, but I need to be able to drive a car today and I don’t want a DUI.

All projections of a sphere onto a flat plane introduce distortion. But there are lots of different projections though.

See this relevant XKCD:

How is this a “Mercator-style projection”?

Also, people figured out the Earth was round long ago exactly because of these sorts of discrepancies. There just wasn’t a lot of value in being hyper accurate since the purpose of a map before the invention of ocean ships was just walking from one city to another along roads.

Seems like it’s very specifically chosen to preserve distances and reduce distortion along the longitude lines closest to China. Perhaps it is useful in that capacity but it introduces distortion for the entire rest of the world.

I guess it really puts the 中 in 中国 (中 means middle, 中国 means “middle country” and is the Chinese name of China)