The abrupt disappearance of a live feed showing Taiwan’s digital minister occurred because the White House panicked over a map showing Taiwan in a different color than China, Reuters claimed on Monday.
Audrey Tang, formally a “minister without portfolio” in the Taiwanese government, was speaking during President Joe Biden’s “Summit for Democracy,” a series of video addresses from some of the world’s states. Biden included the island nation of Taiwan despite the fact that the American government does not recognize Taiwan’s sovereignty as doing so would immediately sever all diplomatic ties with communist China.
Taiwan is a free, democratic sovereign nation. The Chinese Communist Party falsely claims that Taiwan is a rogue “province” of China and that its president, Tsai Ing-wen, and her administration are dangerous separatists with no legitimacy, despite being freely elected by their own people, unlike anyone in the communist Chinese government. Beijing, which has historically never ruled Taiwan, automatically cuts all diplomatic ties to any country that recognizes Taiwan’s sovereignty. Xi Jinping has threatened that anyone who acknowledges that Taiwan is a country will have their “bones ground to powder.”
Tang attended the virtual summit to discuss how Taiwan uses the internet and emerging technologies to improve its diplomatic governance. In doing so, Tang showed a map of Asia created by the South African human rights organization Civicus showing Taiwan as the freest country on the continent. Civicus uses various shades of green, yellow, and red to rate freedom around the world, using bright green to mean freest and bright red to mean most repressive. Taiwan received the NGOs only bright green rating in Asia; China appeared in bright red.
Tang’s feed momentarily cut off when the map appeared on screen and returned in audio-only form. The White House aired a disclaimer reading, “any opinions expressed by individuals on this panel are those of the individual, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States government” as Tang described Taiwan correctly as a “country.”
Ironically, Tang’s statement was part of a panel discussion on “countering digital authoritarianism.”
Biden’s State Department called the disturbance a “technical issue” and an “honest mistake.” The State Department has uploaded the full video, including the map, onto YouTube and shared a link to it on the State Department website.
Continue: Breitbart.com
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