Huawei Gets China’s Map Wrong and the Internet Goes Crazy

Huawei’s recent phone unveiling has generated quite a lot of buzz, but it didn’t necessarily happen because of the devices that the company announced.

A map that the Chinese tech giant displayed during the webcast caused quite a controversy, forcing the company to remove the video and then repost it as if nothing happened.

More specifically, Richard Yu, Huawei’s consumer business boss, took the stage in the original webcast to discuss the location of the company’s data centers across the globe. A slide displaying the map of the world showed up on the screen to highlight the Russian, European, Chinese, and Asian-Pacific data centers.

But as far as China was concerned, the map was rather inaccurate and missed a number of geographic areas that the country still administers. One of them, as per AbacusNews, is Aksai Chin, and it’s absence from the map has generated quite a controversy after the event.

No apology

Needless to say, Internet users rushed to social media, including on Weibo, to blast Huawei for the blunder. The most patriotic users called the error a “shameful thing” and requested the company to issue a public apology.

The Chinese company noticed the error, but instead of releasing a statement, it actually removed the YouTube stream and then published an updated version with a map no longer showing the borders of China. This means the location of China is no longer highlighted on the map, so nobody can accuse the company of not including a specific region within China’s borders.

Huawei doesn’t really afford such mistakes. The company has been under fire in the United States after being banned by the government from using products developed by American firms, so it received much support from users in China. This kind of blunders obviously doesn’t help, and while the company reacted swiftly, it’s pretty clear Chinese users won’t tolerate similar errors in the future.