A British-Australian energy giant has chosen to erase Taiwan from its financial statements, deciding instead to list all revenue from the autonomous region as from “Greater China.”
Taiwan has been a self-governing democracy since the Chinese civil war ended in 1949. However, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regards Taiwan as a breakaway province that must be united with mainland China by any means necessary.
Rio Tinto, one of the world’s largest metal and mining corporations, made the decision to merge Taiwanese revenue data with those of Greater China in its 2022 Full Year Data Report (pdf).
“Consolidated sales revenue by destination has been adjusted to classify Taiwan and China together as ‘Greater China’; previously Taiwan was included in Asia (excluding Greater China and Japan),” the report said. “This change has resulted in a decrease in 2021 revenue attributable to Asia (excluding Greater China and Japan) of: 2.5 percent and US$1,570 million.”…