Taiwan Scraps 2 Lakh Passports Over a Picture Blunder: Prints Dulles Airport Picture Instead of Their Own

Taiwan has had to cancel 200,000 new passports after a wrong image of the airport was printed instead of the island’s main airport. A blunder like this reflects the delicate political system within the island which is claimed by China as a part of its territory. The passport printed an image of the Dulles airport in Washington instead of Taiwan’s Taoyuan International Airport.

The Foreign Ministry stopped the distribution and the printing had cost them nearly $3.4 million. The director-general the Bureau of Consular Affairs Agnes Chen and her predecessor Kung Chung-chen have lost their posts as they “did not fulfill their supervisory duties,” informed the ministry in a statement. Kung had been Taiwan’s representative in Canada since last year. The designers had drawn the images for the inside pages by hand and one of them copied a wrong image of the Washington Airport. The printed image had a tower which did not exist at Taoyuan International Airport.

This severe mistake became a big joke on the internet with someone even writing Taiwan should be a part of the US. The US is their main ally and arms supplier which has already angered Beijing even more. Some online commentators even joked how Taiwan became the 51^st state of the United States. Taiwan is supposed to a self-ruling island which is claimed by China as its own.

It is a very serious matter to have another country’s image on the passport of your nationality. The ministry had rolled out biometric passports in 2008 and the newer versions have security upgrades but a major defect!

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jan 08, 2018 11:32 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).