TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Johns Hopkins University (JHU) sided with Communist China's political stance by changing its listing on its Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) map from Taiwan to "Taipei and environs."
As recently as Monday (March 9), Johns Hopkins was still listing the country as "Taiwan" on its interactive map titled "Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases by the Center from Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins." However, by Tuesday (March 10), the university inexplicably changed its policy on Taiwan's political status by listing it with the name "Taipei and environs."
Twitter users soon started criticizing the university for having made a factual error, and Axios ran an article on the subject. As of the time of publication, instead of reverting to the original version, JHU has removed Taiwan from the list of countries and regions.
Map as of March 9, 2020. (Web.archive.org screenshot)
Taiwan is now listed as a city or province under China under Total Deaths and Total Recorded with the odd, long-winded title "Taipei and environs China." Hong Kong and Macau have also been removed from countries and regions and are now listed as "Hong Kong SAR China" and "Macao SAR China."
In addition, Palestine has been changed to "occupied Palestinian territory,' and the Vatican has been changed to the "Holy See." Johns Hopkins has yet to respond to a request from Taiwan News for a comment on the rationale behind the sudden name change.
When President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) first took office in 2016, she refused to recognize the alleged "1992 Consensus," acknowledging only that the 1992 Taiwan-China talks were a "historical fact." In response, China has been seeking to punish Taiwan by excluding it from international organizations, stealing away diplomatic allies, and intimidating government bodies, corporations, and universities to de-list Taiwan as a country.
Taiwan listed as "Taipei and environs China." (JHU Coronavirus Resource Center screenshot)
The Baltimore-based university's COVID-19 map is widely followed in the West by those concerned about the spread of the disease. However, its data on Chinese cases is questionable in its reliability given that the country has changed its counting scheme on at least six occasions, that it no longer counts asymptomatic persons who test positive, and because there have been numerous accounts from funeral homes stating that many deaths from the disease have not been included in official tallies.
