The Curious Case of a Map and a Disappearing Taiwan Minister at U.S. Democracy Summit
12 December 2021
By (Reuters) Humeyra Pamuk, Michael Martina and David Brunnstrom
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A video feed of a Taiwanese minister was cut during U.S. President Joe Biden’s Summit for Democracy last week after a map in her slide presentation showed Taiwan in a different color to China, which claims the island as its own.
Sources familiar with the matter told Reuters that Friday’s slide show by Taiwanese Digital Minister Audrey Tang caused consternation among U.S. officials after the map appeared in her video feed for about a minute.
The sources, who did not want to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter, said the video feed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nw2bfsjTXhA showing Tang was cut during a panel discussion and replaced with audio only – at the behest of the White House.
The White House was concerned that differentiating Taiwan and China on a map in a U.S.-hosted conference – to which Taiwan had been invited in a show of support at a time when it is under intense pressure from Beijing – could be seen as being at odds with Washington’s “one-China” policy, which avoids taking a position as to whether Taiwan is part of China, the sources said.
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Update: The full presentation by Audrey Tang (with map) was later uploaded to the Summit of Democracy Website and can be found here.
