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# I Mentioned Taiwan, but I Didn’t Get Away With It
- URL: https://goodoil.news/i-mentioned-taiwan-but-i-didnt-get-away-with-it/
- Published: 2026-10-27T03:30:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-27T03:29:59.000Z
- Description: As I write, my lecture is 48 hours away. There has been no other contact from the organisers, and I am assuming that my compromise is deemed acceptable. On the other hand, if this is the final John MacNab column, you’ll know what has happened.
- Author: Reproduced with permission
- Tags: China Politics

[**John MacNab**](https://dailysceptic.org/2026/10/25/i-mentioned-taiwan-but-i-didnt-get-away-with-it/?ref=goodoil.news)  
*John MacNab teaches at a university in Hong Kong.*

I have worked regularly in the Far East for a couple of decades, mainly in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. I have rarely encountered problems over the sensitivities in the region about the differing perceptions of Taiwan across the Taiwan Strait. But I was shouted down once in Kaohsiung, deep in DPP country in Taiwan, for referring to ‘Greater China’.

The DPP is the Democratic Progressive Party – which is currently in power – and which advocates Taiwanese nationalism. As an academic editor, I use ‘Greater China’ to describe the region that includes all the mainly Chinese countries. My assailant was the former minister of health, who happens to be a friend, and who berated me, shouting “Taiwan is not part of China – it is an independent country.”

A few years later, while working in Guangzhou in southern China, I was berated for referring to Taiwan. A chap stood up, interrupted me mid-flow, and told me that I should be using the term ‘Chinese Taipei’. He later gave me a lift back to my hotel; the incident was not mentioned. I concluded that these outbursts were largely performative, and more for the benefit of the other participants than to correct me.

Fast-forward a decade and things are much more acute regarding the Taiwan issue, especially in Mainland China. I found this out this week. This comes from the ‘belly of the beast’, from Mainland China, where I am engaged in a lecture tour of three major cities. I began in Shanghai, where I attended to some business with a publisher. Then I moved on to Hangzhou to teach at one of the universities there. I am now in Guangzhou, where I am preparing to deliver a keynote lecture. And that is when the problem began.

It is routine practice in China to submit PowerPoints well in advance of the day of presentation. A translator will add Chinese to the slides to translate some of your words and phrases, usually making a complete mess of your slides by obscuring some figures and tables and covering your own English with Chinese characters. Any animations whereby you reveal the content of your slides, one line at a time, are routinely removed. The result is that your slides look busy and full of information when they are flashed up, which is the point of the exercise. That is how PowerPoint slides are presented in China.

However, one would be naive not to realise that the slides are being closely read with a view to removing any sensitive content. With over 20 years of working in China, I have never encountered a problem… until now.

My presentation is on one of my research programmes. Over the years, I have benefited from collaboration with colleagues in Taiwan. One of my slides presents a screenshot of the first page of a published paper by way of introduction to one of the key projects. The page shows the location of my collaborators in Taipei and locates Taipei in Taiwan, ROC. The conference organisers contacted me with a screenshot of the slide with ‘Taipei’ and ‘Taiwan, ROC’ blanked out. It was explained to me that this was sensitive content and had been covered up to avoid “potential sensitivities” and it was hoped that I would not mind.

I replied that I did mind very much. I explained that I knew what lay behind this and that I would be making it clear, verbally, that my collaborators and co-authors were in Taipei, which is in Taiwan. “Please do not do that,” the organisers urged me. It was explained that if I persisted, it might have consequences for the school that had invited me and even for the dean and other individuals. The fact that I was a foreigner and that there was no reason why they should be held responsible did not wash, and I was urged, instead, to use the term ‘Taipei, China’. I said I would not and that I would simply refer to ‘Taiwan’, as that is the agreed name of the island, and that I would not be budging from that.

As I write, my lecture is 48 hours away. There has been no other contact from the organisers, and I am assuming that my compromise is deemed acceptable. On the other hand, if this is the final John MacNab column, you’ll know what has happened.

This article was originally published by [the Daily Sceptic](https://dailysceptic.org/2026/10/25/i-mentioned-taiwan-but-i-didnt-get-away-with-it/?ref=goodoil.news).