Biden's recent 'Summit for Democracy' included cutting Taiwanese digital minister's video feed over map depicting Taiwan as distinct from China

Sarah D | 3:46 PM on December 13, 2021

Congratulations to Donald Trump.

As president, he expressed admiration for Chinese President Xi Jinping’s power, and yet, somehow, Joe Biden has found a way to kowtow even harder to the ChiComs:

Biden's staff censored Taiwan during a "Democracy Summit" hosted by the White House.

You can't make this up.

— Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) December 13, 2021

You can’t make it up:

“A video feed of a Taiwanese minister was cut during @POTUS’s Summit for Democracy last week after a map in her slide presentation showed Taiwan in a different color to China, which claims the island as its own.” (Admin says confusion re screen-sharing) https://t.co/AIMoFc8JyB

— Seung Min Kim (@seungminkim) December 13, 2021

More from Reuters:

Sources familiar with the matter told Reuters that Friday’s slide show by Taiwanese Digital Minister Audrey Tang caused consternation among U.S. officials after the map appeared in her video feed for about a minute.

The sources, who did not want to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter, said the video feed showing Tang was cut during a panel discussion and replaced with audio only – at the behest of the White House.

The White House was concerned that differentiating Taiwan and China on a map in a U.S.-hosted conference – to which Taiwan had been invited in a show of support at a time when it is under intense pressure from Beijing – could be seen as being at odds with Washington’s “one-China” policy, which avoids taking a position as to whether Taiwan is part of China, the sources said.

The State Department said “confusion” over screen-sharing resulted in Tang’s video feed being dropped, calling it “an honest mistake.”

When the moderator returned to Tang[‘s presentation on Taiwan’s relative openness on civil rights] a few minutes later, there was no video of her, just audio, and a screenshot captioned: “Minister Audrey Tang Taiwan.” An onscreen disclaimer later declared: “Any opinions expressed by individuals on this panel are those of the individual, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States government.”

Say what you will about Donald Trump and his administration, but he wouldn’t’ve pulled something like this (certainly not without a swift backlash). This sort of craven garbage is pure Joe Biden. Guy who threatened to beat up Trump and challenged voters to pushup contests can’t summon the courage to stand up to China. Not even symbolically.

oof https://t.co/RT24ftGIfT

— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) December 13, 2021

Democracy Summit, lesson 1: Be ready to censor democratic activists should any communists get angry https://t.co/VBCN2A8HEX

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) December 13, 2021

Another inexplicable slap in the face towards Taiwan by the Biden Administration https://t.co/0cKamkIUhU

— Austin Harrison (@austinkharrison) December 13, 2021

It’s actually pretty explicable: the Biden administration is a weak, pathetic, garbage administration.