CHINA/FOREIGN POLICY/TAIWAN/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “A Chinese official said on Monday [7-10-17] that the United States had apologized for a White House statement that misidentified China’s leader, Xi Jinping, as president of the Republic of China — the formal name for Taiwan.
‘According to my understanding, the Chinese side has already raised this with the United States side,’ said Geng Shuang, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry. ‘The United States side apologized and said this was a technological error that has already been corrected.’
The erroneous reference was in the heading of a White House transcript, released on Saturday, of presidential remarks before a bilateral meeting by Mr. Trump and Mr. Xi at the Group of 20 session in Hamburg, Germany. Mr. Xi is the president of the People’s Republic of China.
The gaffe was one of a handful of misnomers issued by the White House during the summit meeting. Mr. Trump’s Instagram account briefly identified Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong of Singapore as President Joko Widodo of Indonesia, Singapore news outlets reported. And another White House statement called the prime minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, ‘President Abe of Japan.’ “
-Austin Ramzy, “Beijing Says U.S. Apologized for Confusing China With Taiwan,” The New York Times online, July 10, 2017