YEREVAN, JUNE 11, ARMENPRESS. Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie became the subject of controversy in China, after she labelled film director Ang Lee Taiwanese, not Chinese, assuming that she does not consider Taiwan an integral part of China. This, as reports “Armenpress”, was informed by The Huffington Post.

 Jolie was asked by an Associated Press reporter during a "Maleficent" press conference in Shanghai to name her favorite Chinese director. Her answer, reprinted in the Independent and the Wall Street Journal, was arguably carefully delivered: “I am not sure if you consider Ang Lee Chinese, he’s Taiwanese but he does many Chinese-language films with many Chinese artists and actors, and I think his works and the actors in his films are the ones I am most familiar with and very fond of,” she reportedly said.

The speech was widely disseminated across Chinese media. “By implying that Taiwan and China are two separate countries, in a moment of excitement, a brilliant woman became a stupid laughing stock,” said one Chinese Weibo user, according to the Independent. Another reportedly labelled Jolie a “deranged Taiwan independence supporter.”

Earlier, Brad Pitt was banned from China after filming "Seven Years in Tibet". But the Chinese government had softened for Angelina Jolie, letting her fiancé into the country for the ongoing "Maleficent" press tour.  

China has disputed the sovereignty of Taiwan since a rival government was established on the island in 1949, after the Chinese Civil War. Tensions have cooled, but China still sees Taiwan as a “renegade province” they are prepared to take by force, as the WSJ reports.

“It’s not clear whether Ms. Jolie knew that she risked getting caught in the cross-Strait cross-fire,” continues the WSJ story, “but her comments certainly set off a volley of scathing comments among Chinese Internet users, with some threatening to boycott her movies for, as one put it, 'disrespecting China’s sovereignty”.