A senior Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman has prompted a storm of ridicule online, after a late-night post in which she used restaurant listings to assert Beijing’s claim over Taiwan.
“Baidu Maps show that there are 38 Shandong dumpling restaurants and 67 Shanxi noodle restaurants in Taipei,” Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Hua Chunying (華春瑩) posted on Twitter late on Sunday.
“Palates don’t cheat. #Taiwan has always been a part of China. The long lost child will eventually return home,” she added.
Photo: AFP
Hua’s post came at the end of a week of tensions around the Taiwan Strait, during which Beijing raged at a trip by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the country.
The Chinese government has responded to Pelosi’s trip by canceling a series of talks and cooperation agreements with Washington, as well as deploying fighter jets, warships and ballistic missiles around Taiwan.
Hua’s post appeared to backfire, as thousands of users on Twitter — a site banned in China and only accessible through virtual private network services — piled on to poke holes in the top official’s logic.
Photo: Reuters
“There are over 100 ramen restaurants in Taipei, so Taiwan is definitely a part of Japan,” a Twitter user with the handle “Marco Chu” wrote in Hua’s replies.
“Google Maps show that there are 17 McDonalds, 18 KFCs, 19 Burger Kings, and 19 Starbucks in Beijing. Palates don’t cheat. #China has always been a part of America. The long lost child will eventually return home,” Twitter user “@plasticreceiver” wrote in a parody of Hua’s post.
Others wondered jokingly if Hua’s logic meant Beijing could place claims on territories far beyond the Asia Pacific region.
“There are 29 dumpling houses in the Greater Los Angeles area not to mention 89 noodle restaurants,” a person writing under the name “Terry Adams” wrote.
“Using Hua’s logic, LA has always been a part of China,” they added.
Sunday’s post is far from the first time Beijing’s diplomats have raised eyebrows with their use of social media that their own government prohibits.
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Zhao Lijian (趙立堅) has frequently promoted conspiracy theories on Twitter, including the idea that the US military might have brought COVID-19 to China.
CHIP WAR: The new restrictions are expected to cut off China’s access to Taiwan’s technologies, materials and equipment essential to building AI semiconductors Taiwan has blacklisted Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯), dealing another major blow to the two companies spearheading China’s efforts to develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) chip technologies. The Ministry of Economic Affairs’ International Trade Administration has included Huawei, SMIC and several of their subsidiaries in an update of its so-called strategic high-tech commodities entity list, the latest version on its Web site showed on Saturday. It did not publicly announce the change. Other entities on the list include organizations such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as well as companies in China, Iran and elsewhere. Local companies need
CRITICISM: It is generally accepted that the Straits Forum is a CCP ‘united front’ platform, and anyone attending should maintain Taiwan’s dignity, the council said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it deeply regrets that former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) echoed the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “one China” principle and “united front” tactics by telling the Straits Forum that Taiwanese yearn for both sides of the Taiwan Strait to move toward “peace” and “integration.” The 17th annual Straits Forum yesterday opened in Xiamen, China, and while the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) local government heads were absent for the first time in 17 years, Ma attended the forum as “former KMT chairperson” and met with Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Chairman Wang Huning (王滬寧). Wang
LONG FLIGHT: The jets would be flown by US pilots, with Taiwanese copilots in the two-seat F-16D variant to help familiarize them with the aircraft, the source said The US is expected to fly 10 Lockheed Martin F-16C/D Block 70/72 jets to Taiwan over the coming months to fulfill a long-awaited order of 66 aircraft, a defense official said yesterday. Word that the first batch of the jets would be delivered soon was welcome news to Taiwan, which has become concerned about delays in the delivery of US arms amid rising military tensions with China. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said the initial tranche of the nation’s F-16s are rolling off assembly lines in the US and would be flown under their own power to Taiwan by way
CROSS-STRAIT: The MAC said it barred the Chinese officials from attending an event, because they failed to provide guarantees that Taiwan would be treated with respect The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Friday night defended its decision to bar Chinese officials and tourism representatives from attending a tourism event in Taipei next month, citing the unsafe conditions for Taiwanese in China. The Taipei International Summer Travel Expo, organized by the Taiwan Tourism Exchange Association, is to run from July 18 to 21. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian (朱鳳蓮) on Friday said that representatives from China’s travel industry were excluded from the expo. The Democratic Progressive Party government is obstructing cross-strait tourism exchange in a vain attempt to ignore the mainstream support for peaceful development
RSS