A museum in Western Australia removed exhibition content about COVID-19 originating in China after it received complaints from the locally based Chinese consul general and community.

The newly set up WA Museum Boola Bardip in Perth acknowledged the “inaccurate” description. Museum chief executive Alec Coles said that it was an innocent mistake to have labeled one of its COVID-19 displays with the words “a coronavirus, originating in mainland China, spreads across the globe” in the exhibition “Connections,” launched on Nov. 21.

Other than the label, an interactive world map in the museum also drew a backlash. The map would light up at the particular country selected by users. But when users selected China, the light went on only at the mainland, not the island of Taiwan.

A local Chinese-language media outlet, Most WA, reported the offending exhibits to Beijing’s consulate general in Perth, whereupon consul general Dong Zhihua wrote to the museum requesting an explanation.

Coles said in response that they would delete the description over the origin of COVID-19, according to a letter he wrote in reply to the consul general.

In an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald published on Thursday, Coles confirmed that they had received a letter from the Chinese consulate general, but said the amendments were not due to political pressure.

Coles said Dong’s letter had drawn their attention to the exhibition content and that they had found factual errors in a subsequent review. He believed that people would in future be able to determine the origin of the virus, but before any conclusion could be reached, the museum took the stance that it should revise the content.

He further emphasized that COVID-19 was not the only content being changed, as they had also acted on feedback from a visitor that the number of medals won by a professional Australian football player was wrong.

Premier of Western Australia Mark McGowan said it was the museum’s decision to make the changes. As for Taiwan, the issue had always been one of contention, Western Australia Treasurer Ben Wyatt said, adding that he believed the dispute would not go away any time soon, according to the news report.

Tensions between Australia and China have been on the rise for months. Last week, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce imposed temporary anti-dumping duties of 107.1% to 212.1% on Australian wine. The move triggered pledges from allies of Australia around the world, including Taiwan, to buy more of its wine to show support.

Wang Dan, a student leader in China’s democracy movement of 1898 now based in the United States, said on his Twitter page that he had bought two bottles of Australian red wine although he had abstained from drink for some time. He also appealed to the public to support Australia in its fight against the Communist Party.

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