Gap has apologized to China after an image of a t-shirt on sale in Canada went viral.
The offending shirt portrayed a map of China that didn’t adhere to Beijing’s territorial claims. Specifically, Taiwan, “Southern Tibet,” and the South China Sea were omitted from the map. The People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party, tweeted a picture of the map on Gap’s shirt next to the one that is accurate according to Beijing:
American clothing retailer @Gap on Monday apologized for printing incomplete Chinese map on T-shirts for sales outside #China, said the brand respects China's sovereignty and territorial integrity pic.twitter.com/uHJoLnpmr6
— People's Daily,China (@PDChina) May 14, 2018
While Taiwan is self-governed, only a minority of countries recognize its sovereignty as a nation independent of China. The area China calls Southern Tibet is a disputed region on the country’s border with India, where China claims about 90,000 square kilometres in the state of Arunachal Pradesh. In the South China Sea, China is engaged in a number of disputes over islands, coral reefs, and lagoons in what is a major commercial thoroughfare that is potentially rich in resources.
Although the company said the shirts had not been sold in China, it said in a statement that all shirts in the country had been recalled and destroyed. It was not immediately clear how the shirts would have been in the country if they weren’t on sale there. (Gap did not immediately respond to Fortune‘s request for comment on this point.)
In a statement the company said, “Gap Inc. respects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of China. We’ve learned a Gap brand T-shirt sold in some overseas markets mistakenly failed to reflect the correct map of China. We sincerely apologize for this unintentional error.” The company further reaffirmed its “strict adherence” to Chinese rules and laws.
This year, China has cracked down on international companies to reinforce the “One China” policy. Delta Air Lines, Marriott, Zara, and Mercedes-Benz are among the other companies that have apologized after similar slip-ups. Following a letter to several U.S. airlines demanding they change the way they refer to Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau in promotional materials, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders issued a statement calling the demand “Orwellian nonsense.”
Read more: fortune.com
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