TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Academia Historica, which manages Taiwan’s historical archives and artifacts of presidents and vice presidents, has come under fire for a post suggesting the “Republic of China (ROC) has been inherited by Beijing.”

The institute on Sunday (Aug. 7) posted a video and excerpts of a July 14 speech by Hsu Ching-hsiung (許慶雄), a Taiwanese law expert and pro-independence activist. The post contains messages suggesting, “The ROC has been represented and inherited by the Beijing government” and “maintaining the status quo is a denial of Taiwan being a country.”

Officially known as the Republic of China, Taiwan represented China in the U.N. until it lost its seat to the People’s Republic of China in 1971. Advocates have been pushing for the drafting of a new Constitution that will lay the legal groundwork for Taiwan to pursue independence.

Many have decried the post as reflecting the opinion of the Tsai administration, wrote UDN, a claim denied by Academia Historica.

In a statement, the institute clarified that views expressed by speakers are solely opinions of their own. Admitting that the Facebook page editor failed to add “quotation marks” to the excerpts, it said that Chen Yi-shen (陳儀深), president of the Academia Historica, had voiced a different perspective at the end of the speech, which was recorded in the video.

Meanwhile, it stressed the institute’s status as an academic platform that encourages debates on various topics including Taiwan’s status.