The White House's map showing Taiwan and China as separate countries rattled some nerves from behind China's Great Firewall

The Asahi Shimbun via Getty Images

• A White House map that showed Taiwan as a separate country from China is likely to draw as sharp a rebuke from mainland social media hawks even as it excited pro-independence supporters in Taipei.
• At a White House press conference on Monday dealing with the current crisis in Venezuela, viewers in Asia quickly homed in on a background map that highlighted China but displayed Taiwan as a separate country.
• China claims Taiwan as its own, while Taiwan views itself as independent from the mainland. China has exerted considerable effort to enforce its view in this matter.

At a White House press conference this week dealing with the current crisis in Venezuela, attention in Asia quickly turned to a background map highlighting China — absent Taiwan — in red. This is not a map that actually exists, according to the Chinese Communist Party and its critically important origin story.

As the US National Security Adviser John Bolton, and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin held a press briefing outlining economic sanctions to force Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to step down, attention from either side of the Taiwan Strait moved to the map in the background.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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