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Taipei, Taiwan:
Taiwan’s opposition social gathering demanded a clarification Monday after a US envoy who’s visiting appeared to mispronounce the title of the island’s president for her arch rival in China.
Health chief Alex Azar met with President Tsai Ing-wen earlier Monday within the highest degree go to to Taiwan because the United States switched diplomatic recognition to China.
In his opening assertion he fluffed the title of President Tsai — pronounced “ts-eye” — and as a substitute mentioned one thing nearer to “shee”.
That sounded uncomfortably near the pronunciation of Xi Jinping, the president of China, a rustic that views Taiwan as its personal territory and has vowed to at some point seize it.
Just a few sentences later, Azar clearly pronounced President Tsai’s title appropriately.
But the opposition Kuomintang social gathering (KMT), which favours hotter ties with China, jumped on the gaffe.
“The KMT expresses shock and disapproval while urging the presidential office to sternly protest to the US side and clarify that the president of the Republic of China is surnamed Tsai, not Xi,” the social gathering mentioned in an announcement.
Xavier Chang, Tsai’s spokesman, dismissed the KMT’s demand.
“There is no doubt Secretary Azar was addressing (her) as President Tsai,” he mentioned in an announcement.
“We suggest all sides to focus on (Taiwan’s) diplomatic accomplishments and anti-pandemic cooperation. Closer Taiwan-US relations is the joint fruit of the efforts made by all people.”
Social media reactions had been combined, with some netizens saying Azar’s pronunciation appeared like “President Xi”, others musing it may need been the phrase “presidency”.
The American Institute in Taiwan, Washington’s de facto embassy, declined to remark.
Its transcript of Azar’s speech contained the phonetic spelling of Tsai’s title as “ts-eye”.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is printed from a syndicated feed.)
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