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台北 (or 臺北) is the name of Taiwanese city, Taibei, read [tʰaɪ̯³⁵ peɪ̯²¹⁴⁻²¹⁽⁴⁾]
in Mandarin. In Japanese, it is normally rendered with the sequence タイペイ. But
what is the reading of this sequence? ペイ is obviously none of the systematic
音読み of the character, but does the norm that -エイ ending is pronounced [e:]
instead of [ej] still apply? Or does the pronunciation follow the Chinese
version, where the diphthong actually exists? In short, タイペ-イ or タイペー?

(If the correct answer is “people actually say たいほく,” that also is accepted.
But still, how does one pronounce 台北 if タイペイ?)
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pronunciation readings
What is the reading of 台北(タイペイ)?
I don't know the norm ; "`-エイ ending is pronounced [e:]`" though, 北 is
pronounced as 「ペイ」 or 「ペー」 while playing mahjong game among Japanese people
borrowing Chinese pronunciation for calling [the wind
tiles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahjong_tiles#Winds). At least to me,
pronouncing either pronunciation;「タイペイ」or「タイペー」is fine.

According to one of the most popular guidebook for Japanese travelers :
[地球{ちきゅう}の歩{ある}き方{かた}](https://www.arukikata.co.jp/country/TW/), they adopt
「タイペイ」: 台北.

NHK use「タイホク」on [their TV program : 2度目の台湾
タイホク編](http://www.nhk.or.jp/2ndvisit/taihoku/).

According to [コトバンク:「精選版
日本国語大辞典の解説」](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%8F%B0%E5%8C%97-558295#E3.83.87.E3.82.B8.E3.82.BF.E3.83.AB.E5.A4.A7.E8.BE.9E.E6.B3.89),
the dictionary has hyperlinked both 「タイペイ」 and 「タイペー」to 「たいほく【台北】」.
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If spelled タイペイ, people usually read literally //taipei// instead of a long
vowel today.

Basically, エイ for //eː// is an orthographical rule limited to traditional
Sino-Japanese words, or those has readings systematically deriving from
historical Chinese pronunciations. While タイペイ is certainly a Chinese word, it
is merely an occasional transcription of a modern Mandarin word form, in that
respect nothing different than recent loan words from European languages, and
people just read it out straightforwardly. Edge cases do exist such as
[ケツメイシ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketsumeishi), a music group named after
Chinese herbal name [決明子](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senna_obtusifolia)
"sicklepod seed", which is clearly a Sino-Japanese word, is almost always
pronounced //ketsɯmeiɕi//, because it sounds like but another neologism to the
majority who don't know such a word.

Whether you reproduce a syllable whose original sound is like [[ej]] using a
long vowel or not is completely arbitrary. For example, a PC brand
[_acer_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acer_Inc.) registers themselves as
エイサー, so we read as it is spelled; a cellphone brand
[_au_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Au_\(mobile_phone_company\)) as エーユー, and
we follow it likewise. It makes an interesting mismatch that _au Pay_ , the
digital wallet service it provides, is pronounced エーユー・ペイ.

How to read kanji word 台北 itself is up to you; either the standard on'yomi
たいほく, タイペイ, or タイペー would work, like we cannot decide the sole correct
pronunciation of _Appalachia_.

* * *

What stated above is not applied to the spelling オウ, for which most people
would go with //oː// in any context (except in native 大和言葉).
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