 Gap 'terribly sorry' over China map shirt omitting Taiwan Beijing (AFP) May 15, 2018 - US clothing retailer Gap has apologised to China over a T-shirt with a map showing the mainland but omitting Taiwan, becoming the latest foreign firm to run afoul of Beijing's policy on the self-ruling island. China, which considers Taiwan a rebel province awaiting reunification, has taken airlines, hotels and other companies to task in recent months for listing the island as a separate country on their websites. The Gap shirt, which was sold in overseas markets, features a map of China, but Taiwan does not appear to the southeast of the country, according to a photo of the company's online store posted on the Twitter account of the official People's Daily newspaper. The state-run Global Times newspaper said the map also omitted South Tibet and the South China Sea, and that the issue sparked a social media frenzy in China after a photo was posted of the shirt at an outlet store in Canada. Hundreds of people complained on Gap's official account on China's Weibo microblogging website, the daily said. The US company issued its apology on Weibo late Monday, saying it "respects the integrity of China's sovereignty and territory". "We are terribly sorry for this unintentional mistake. We are doing internal checks to correct the mistake as soon as possible," Gap said. "We have removed the product from the Chinese market and destroyed them all." The company said it strictly abides by Chinese law and will devote itself to greater scrutiny to avoid similar errors in the future. The Global Times quoted Gap as saying that the T-shirt had not been released in China. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang took note of the apology and would not say at a press briefing whether the government had complained to Gap. "We have noticed this (Gap) statement and we will pay close attention to it," Lu said. US hotel chain Marriott, Spanish clothing giant Zara and a slew of airlines have faced China's wrath for not classifying Taiwan as part of China on their websites. The White House hit back at the push earlier this month, calling the demands placed on airlines "Orwellian nonsense". The Chinese Civil Aviation Administration had sent a notice to 36 foreign airlines, including a number of US carriers, on April 25, asking them to comply with Beijing's standards, according to the White House. In January, Australia's Qantas Airways changed its website classification of Taiwan and Hong Kong from separate countries to Chinese territories, blaming its earlier approach on an "oversight". Taiwan has been self-ruled since splitting from the mainland after a 1949 civil war, maintaining its own government, military and independent foreign policy.
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A photo of Chinese tourists wearing T-shirts depicting Beijing's claims to the disputed South China Sea has sparked online anger in Vietnam, prompting calls for the visitors to be deported.
The shirts featured a map of China and its so-called nine-dash line -- the sea boundary found on some 1940s-era maps which Beijing says proves its claim to most of the waterway, despite partial claims from Vietnam and other nations.
The territorial dispute is a hot-button issue in Vietnam, which has a turbulent history of conflict with its powerhouse neighbour.
The visitors arrived in southern Cam Ranh airport on Sunday night and were stopped by security at the immigration desk, an airport police officer confirmed to AFP.
"We asked them to take the T-shirts off before allowing them to leave the airport," said the officer, without providing his name because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Photos of the tourists in their nationalist attire made the rounds on social media -- with the nine-dash line crossed out with an "X".
Some netizens said the tourists were not welcome in Vietnam.
"Immediately deport them and ban them permanently from coming to Vietnam," Facebook user Nguyen Ngoc Hieu posted.
Another, Quan Hai, wrote: "We must be determined, not allowing anyone passing through our border gates if the passports, T-shirts or anything else with the dash-line maps."
Vietnam and China have long sparred over the resource-rich sea, where Beijing has built artificial islands and installed airstrips and military equipment.
This is not the first time the dispute has trickled into the tourism sector.
A Chinese passport featuring a map of Beijing's sea claims was defaced in 2016 by a border agent in Ho Chi Minh City's airport with an unfriendly welcome note reading "Fuck you".
Border officials in tourist hotspots Danang and Phu Quoc island have also reportedly refused to issue visa stamps in Chinese passports with maps of the nine-dash line.
More than four million Chinese visitors came to Vietnam last year -- over 30 percent of all foreign guests -- and Chinese tourists are a major cash cow.
Some guides say this can put them in a spot, especially when visitors dispute Hanoi's version of historical events.
"We don't like the Chinese tourists but they bring us profits, so we cannot resist them," Hung, a Hanoi-based tour operator, told AFP, using only his first name.
A group of guides petitioned authorities in Danang last year, complaining that unlicensed Chinese guides were leading tours with their own interpretation of history -- and sea claims.
Hung said guides have to push back.
"We are Vietnamese, we can't let them distort the truth about our homeland and our history."
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