The New York Times
By Austin Ramzy

HONG KONG — Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan’s new president, made a rare appearance in Chinese online videos this week. The flag of Taiwan, officially the Republic of China, did not.

The two flags that were standing behind Ms. Tsai and Marcus D. Jadotte, the United States assistant secretary of commerce, as they met in Taiwan were pixelated and appeared as grainy blobs in footage carried by Tencent Video, a Chinese website. The clip was later posted by the English-language website of People’s Daily, the flagship newspaper of the Communist Party.

The Chinese news media focused on a stumble by Ms. Tsai in her meeting with Mr. Jadotte. She paused awkwardly while reading the Chinese version of Mr. Jadotte’s name in the prepared text, then ad-libbed in English, “I have trouble saying it in the Chinese language.”

The Chinese state- and party-run news media have been critical of Ms. Tsai in her first week in office. One report even suggested that her status as a single woman made her “extreme.” That article, carried on the website of a newspaper run by Xinhua, the state news agency, was widely criticized and quickly removed from most Chinese websites.     [FULL  STORY]