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Social media users in China are claiming that the country has won more Tokyo Olympic medals in total than the United States -- by counting medals won by Taiwan and Hong Kong as belonging to China.

China, according to traditional methods of tallying total medals, came in second place behind the United States now that the 2020 Olympics has officially ended.

China officially won fewer gold and overall medals than the U.S. in total -- the U.S. barely edged out China with 39 gold medals, which is just one more than China.

However, Chinese netizens have taken to popular microblogging platform Weibo to say that China actually has 42 gold medals under its belt.

The inflated and inaccurate count puts China three ahead of the 39 that the USA took home, and four more than China alone really won.

New graphic showing total

The graphic circulating on Weibo shows the inflated medal tally.

By lumping Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau in the Weibo tally, the enlarged “China” took in 42 golds, 37 silvers and 27 bronzes for a total count of 106.

The post was accompanied with a caption that said: "This is the real, complete China, okay!"

While Chinese netizens understand the post is a satirical one, they were divided over the intentions of the Weibo user who first posted the picture.

However, the majority of commenters agreed that the Weibo user simply wanted to make the point that Hong Kong and Taiwan are part of China.

"I don't understand why there are so many comments that are berating the blogger (original poster). I think the blogger simply wanted to express that Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan all belong to China, I don't understand why so many people are saying this is embarrassing."

“What, this can't be true, are there really people who think that we are hung up over the medals? This (the Olympics) is too small. What we want to say is that every inch of China's territory must be returned."

"The blogger simply meant to say that Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan belong to China, what are the others going on about, I don't get it. I don't think there's anything wrong with this. When we criticised Dee Hsu (Taiwanese talk show host), didn't we also exclude Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan from China?"

Olympic politics

During the Tokyo Games, many major U.S. publications — including NBC and New York Times — developed their own way of tallying and ranking nations.

This was likely in response to the U.S. trailing China in the gold medal count initially.

American media outlets placed the U.S. at the top of the ladder based on overall tally, instead of ranking nations according to gold medals.

The official Olympics website values gold above all else.

This is the same method employed by other medal tallies outside of the U.S.

Chinese retaliate

Some Chinese have also tried to downplay the achievements of the U.S. in the Tokyo Olympics.

Chen Weihua, the European Union correspondent for state affiliated media China Daily, tweeted a photo before the Olympics ended of a tally showing the U.S. ahead in the overall medal count, but behind China in gold medals.

He wrote that the "U.S. media always finds a way to put [the U.S.] on top."

“communism wins” “real communism
has never been
tried” pic.twitter.com/1QAEx2Tkgf

— siraj hashmi (@SirajAHashmi) August 8, 2021

He was right up to a certain point in the Games.

This was so as the U.S. eventually pulled through with a few more gold medals to surge ahead of China by the time the Games concluded.

The politics of names

Currently, the Chinese Communist Party claims Taiwan is part of China.

The International Olympic Committee requires Taiwan to compete as “Chinese Taipei”.

Announcers would say “Chinese Taipei” instead of Taiwan, in a move seen as to appease Beijing.

For decades, China and Taiwan used to lock horns for the International Olympic Committee's recognition as the sole representative of Greater China.

Then in 1981, Taiwan begrudgingly agreed to compete under the official name of Chinese Taipei, and use a new emblem and flag, in accordance to the Nagoya Resolution, ABC News reported.

The name has since become a designated term for Taiwan in various international organisations, including the World Trade Organization, the World Health Organization, and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.

The name Chinese Taipei might have been seen as a humiliation at the time, but the self-governed island has accepted it as a compromise in order to participate in international organisations and events.

While some Taiwanese athletes were pushing for the name "Chinese Taipei" to be dropped at the Olympics as they wanted to be recognised as representing "Taiwan" instead, some others objected to the move, saying they wanted to retain the chance to complete at international sporting events.

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Top photos via Weibo & Xinhua