A misidentification of former vice president Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) as Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha in a photograph published by the White House on blogging platform Medium has been corrected.
The correction in a caption alongside an article by White House chief photographer Pete Souza came after the mistake was reported by Taiwanese media outlets.
The photograph shows US President Barack Obama talking with Siew and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) before a welcome dinner for APEC leaders in the Philippines on Nov. 18. However, the caption mistakenly identified Siew as Prayuth.
Siew was attending the APEC meeting in Manila on behalf of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).
“Wearing traditional Barong Tagalog shirts, President Obama talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, left, and former vice president Vincent Siew of Taiwan before the APEC leaders welcome dinner,” the corrected caption reads.
The photograph, credited to Souza, was one of 67 that were posted on the blog, along with the article last week, highlighting Obama’s trips to the G20 Leaders’ Summit in Turkey, the APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting in the Philippines, and the ASEAN meeting and the East Asia Summit in Malaysia.
Taiwan again gained unwanted “recognition” in the incident, following the unwelcome attention it attracted when the Republic of China flag featured in a recent video by the Islamic State group.
The flag was one of 60 national flags that appeared in the video. The video surfaced after Obama named some of the US Asia-Pacific partners, including Taiwan, in what he described as a coalition against the militant group, during the East Asia summit in Kuala Lumpur on Nov. 22.
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