Internet users in Taiwan and Japan criticized the misrepresentation of Taiwan as “China (Taiwan)” by Japan’s 7-Eleven in a picture displaying 7-Eleven employee uniforms of different countries.
Japan’s 7-Eleven on Friday posted a picture of various 7-Eleven uniforms around the world on X, asking followers to leave a comment on which one was their favorite. However, the one most familiar to people in Taiwan was tagged as “China (Taiwan),” provoking widespread criticism from Taiwanese and Japanese Internet users.
One Internet user said in the comment area that it was a deliberate misrepresentation, given that the US was not tagged onto Hawaii in the picture.
Photo: Screen grab from the X account of Japan’s 7-Eleven
Japan’s 7-Eleven late on Saturday night removed the post and published an apology. It apologized for causing discomfort due to the inconsiderate content and promised to be more careful.
Although Japanese academics familiar with cross-strait affairs attributed the controversial post to Japanese companies’ lack of awareness about the Taiwan-China relationship, they said the underlying cause might lie in Japanese school textbooks, most of which have long been using debatable descriptions of Taiwan-related matters.
For example, the median line of the Taiwan Strait was removed from maps to indicate Taiwan as “part of China,” or data were sourced from Chinese statistics to create charts and tables, with information about Taiwan colored the same as China, they said.
Misleading textbook narratives even claim that Japan “returned Taiwan to China” in 1945, or that the China-Taiwan status quo is “divided.”
Tokyo allow private publishers to compile textbooks, which can be published and used by schools with approval from the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT).
Teikoku-Shoin, one of the Japanese publishers that erroneously marked Taiwan as part of China, said its mischaracterizations of cross-strait issues were “based on the Japanese government’s view,” the Sankei Shimbun reported.
However, the MEXT has never “acknowledged” Taiwan as belonging to China, although it reviews textbook maps based on Tokyo’s principle of “understanding and respecting” Beijing’s stance about Taiwan-China relations as set forth in the Japan-China Joint Communique, it reported.
Mischaracterizations of Taiwan such as Teikoku-Shoin’s textbook narratives are out of place with the mainstream public opinion of Taiwan, and might be part of Chinese influence and infiltration warfare against Japan, the Sankei Shimbun reported.
Such narratives might also be exploited to incite anti-US sentiment in Japan if US armed forces based in Japan begin to use Japanese military bases to help defend Taiwan in potential cross-strait conflicts, the report said.
Many pro-Taiwan Japanese civic groups as well as Taiwanese civic groups in Japan have been urging the MEXT to correct such erroneous textbook content since 2005.
The Taiwanese Association in Japan and the Taiwan Research Forum occasionally jointly hold signature campaigns at major train stations in Tokyo, with the latest one held at Ikebukuro Station last month.
The petition aims to urge the MEXT to ask Japanese publishers to correct mischaracterizations and promote Japanese students’ understanding of Taiwan as a democracy that does not belong to China.
The forum had submitted a petition to the MEXT in 2007 and is slated to file another petition to the Japanese National Diet.
Additional reporting by CNA
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