BEND THE KNEE: Gap sorry for T-shirt’s ‘erroneous’ China map.
In a posting late Monday on China’s Weibo microblogging platform, the company said it discovered that some T-shirts sold overseas “had an erroneous design of China’s map.”
“We are truly sorry about this unintentional mistake,” Gap said, promising to carry out “more rigorous reviews” in the future.
Gap took action after photos began circulating on Chinese social media of a T-shirt with a map that didn’t include Taiwan, a self-ruled island that Beijing regards as Chinese territory. The map also appeared to leave out southern Tibet and the disputed South China Sea, the state-owned Global Times said, adding that it drew hundreds of complaints on Weibo.
“Look, it’s a badly drawn map on a lousy t-shirt,” doesn’t cut it with Chinese nationalists.