China isn’t happy with the “incomplete map” NBC Universal showed during the Tokyo Olympics opening ceremony Friday.
The demonstration, which featured neither self-ruled Taiwan nor the South China Sea, “hurt the dignity and emotions of the Chinese people,” the Chinese consulate in New York said Saturday on the country’s social media platform Weibo, Reuters reports.
NBC, which holds U.S.-broadcasting rights to the Games, showed the map when the Chinese athletes arrived, according to the outlet.
“We urge NBC to recognize the serious nature of this problem and take measures to correct the error,” the consulate told Reuters, without elaborating on its issues with the map.
This isn’t the first time references to Taiwan and the disputed body of water have caused issue.
Just last year, the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center, which has for much of the coronavirus pandemic kept a running tally of worldwide cases and deaths, altered its reference to Taiwan, using China’s preferred “Taipei and environs,” as China views Taiwan as part of its territory, Axios reported at the time.
Back in 2018, the Gap apologized to China for a map of the country on a T-shirt the company was selling in North America which did not include the self-ruled island, “Southern Tibet” — which China claims in India’s Arunachal Pradesh state — nor the territorial claims in the South China Sea, The Washington Post reported at the time.
