AUSTRIAN crystal maker Swarovski has apologized to China for erroneously referring to Hong Kong as a country on its website.

Swarovski’s spokesperson, Chinese actress Jiang Shuying, announced on the Sina Weibo platform yesterday that her team has notified the company that she has canceled her contract with the brand and has stopped all cooperation.

The announcement came after Chinese netizens found that Swarovski listed Hong Kong Special Administrative Region as an independent country under its “search country” option on its official website.

A screenshot of the mislabelling has been circulating on Chinese social media, with many netizens expressing outrage at the brand. “Swarovski apologized” became a trending hashtag on Weibo, with 270 million views as of yesterday.

Swarovski apologized at 8:30 a.m. yesterday on Sina Weibo.

“Swarovski deeply apologizes to Chinese people whose feelings were hurt, to our partners who were affected and to our Asian spokesperson Jiang Shuying … Swarovski has always resolutely safeguarded China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the brand announced.

“Swarovski has thousands of websites in various countries and regions. We are now checking the websites one by one and will try our best to correct the mistakes in the shortest time,” Swarovski said.

The mis-reference was found to have been deleted on the World of Swarovski website yesterday.

A series of international fashion brands, including Italian brand Versace, U.S. Coach and Calvin Klein, French Givenchy and Japanese sports brand Asics, have also apologized on Chinese social media since Sunday for mislabeling Chinese regions — Hong Kong, Taiwan or Macao — as countries on their products or websites. 

(Global Times)