Can you see Saudi Arabia changing their islamic calendar so as not to offend Christians living and working there???

Do you expect Arabs working in your country to make their appointments according to your calendar?

The origins of the change came about at a time when much of the archaeological research in the period where BCE or CE matters much was in an area that once was (perhaps?) significantly Xtian but then (and now) was/is also largely Muslim. The older terms, particularly the "church language" "AD," was and is offensive to Muslims in their own countries, especially when a bunch of pompous asses come poking around in their desert and hauling off their history.

While colonialism prevailed, the offense to the locals could be ignored, but once the "superiority of the crown(s)" was challenged, and the "suppression by force" of dissent lessened, it was necessary to "lessen the offense." It was (mostly) a very large desert, in which offending the locals could result in mysterious mishaps, including the disappearance of "explorers" who wondered too far from their 9mm tools, or ran out of fuel for them.

At the same time that the need to "get along" a little better with those particular locals appeared, it was recognized that academic confusion would be best avoided by using a single set of terms universally, even where pompous bigots unmindful of the sensibilities of the rest of the world had their vast museums of (stolen?) artifacts.

There is no loss of intelligibility in using the newer terminology, and it slightly reduces the insult to a large part of the world's population.

BCE (Before the Christian Era) is less offensive to non-Xtians only in the sense that it would be less offensive to say "before the Pope had a pimple on his ass." An event, with an agreed on date, without quite so strong an implied religious significance, is sufficient. Even that slight improvement has permitted many archaeologists to gain access to sites they might otherwise not have been permitted to explore - and has sometimes been helpful in allowing them to survive to write their papers.

If the older terminology had not been sufficient insult to interfere with access to archaeological sites where it offended, those who objected would quite likely have been ignored. By minimizing the insult, and by entering into cooperative research with all of those who share the history and the ancestors of the regions involved, the research - after some significant suspensions - has proceded, to the benefit of all the descendants of the peoples and civilizations being studied.

Whether it was decided to be more polite only because "they" had something "we" wanted isn't of too much significance; although we'd have been "nicer" had we recognized the offense sooner "just because we cared."

John