Chinese government demands NBC correct ‘error’ of excluding Taiwan from map of China in Olympic broadcast

The disputed map in question, which was shown at the opening ceremony for the Tokyo Olympics on Friday, omitted Taiwan and the South China Sea, both of which Chinese authorities feel belong to them.

The Chinese communist government does not control the island of Taiwan, which has operated under self-rule, but has claimed for years that Taiwan is a "rogue province" of China and refuses to have diplomatic relations with any country that recognizes Taiwan's independence. China's authoritarian government has also made disputed territorial claims to the South China Sea, which have been the source of significant near-military conflict over the years with China's neighbors.

According to Reuters, the Chinese consulate in New York posted on Weibo (roughly, the Chinese version of Twitter) on Saturday: "We urge NBC to recognise the serious nature of this problem and take measures to correct the error."

It could be speculated that NBC was trying to appease the Chinese government while not offending others by simply excluding Taiwan from the map entirely.

China has famously tried to pressure the rest of the world to not refer to the country of Taiwan by its name, attempting to get people to refer to it as "Chinese Taipei." Taiwan has its own military, currency, passports, system of government, penal code and transit code and diplomatic relations with many other countries. It even has its own athletes currently participating in the Tokyo Olympics.