http://lists.musicbrainz.org/pipermail/musicbrainz-style/2011-May/011628.html

IMO, when two copies of an album are identical in all respects (content, packaging, barcode, label, catalog number) except for where it was printed and sold, it is not meaningful to call that two separate releases, it is more akin to two pressings of the same release.

Duplicating releases here means a greatly increased chance that fixes made to one region's "release" is not made for the other region's "release", or a waste of effort for those that do.

My preferred fix to the problem is to allow multiple countries for a single release. This would often be applicable for Chinese releases which are often released simultaneously in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and sometimes also Malaysia.