{"id":445774,"date":"2026-05-17T05:19:25","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T05:19:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/445774\/"},"modified":"2026-05-17T05:19:25","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T05:19:25","slug":"china-flag-row-erupts-after-table-tennis-chiefs-make-team-title-merchandise-gaffe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/445774\/","title":{"rendered":"China flag row erupts after table tennis chiefs make team title merchandise gaffe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Furious Chinese fans have blasted the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) after official merchandise for the World Team Table Tennis Championships twice got the nation\u2019s flag wrong.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Posters, T-shirts and hoodies, priced between \u00a335 (HK$350) and \u00a367, all celebrating the victories for the country\u2019s men and women, initially featured a flag with six stars, not five as it should have done.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Fans first spotted the error on Friday, and flooded social media with complaints directed at the ITTF and Table Tennis England. One widely shared Weibo post drew more than 10,000 comments.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cEven something like this can happen \u2013 what is the Chinese Table Tennis Association (CTTA) doing?\u201d one fan wrote. \u201cIf you want to make money from us, learn to show some respect first.\u201d<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cWhich country has a six-star red flag?\u201d another asked.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Instead of China\u2019s five-star flag, the design showed six stars.\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/62a49d6a-8338-475b-8179-27a95d8839be_d51831be.jpg\" title=\"Instead of China\u2019s five-star flag, the design showed six stars.\"\/>Instead of China\u2019s five-star flag, the design showed six stars.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Hours later, the ITTF updated the image without commenting publicly. However, while the number of stars was reduced from six to five, the revised version still showed the yellow stars in the wrong position, further angering fans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Furious Chinese fans have blasted the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) after official merchandise for the World Team&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":445775,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1657,208496,208495,85,208497,46,202295,147766,105,208498,208501,208500,5731,113970,208499],"class_list":["post-445774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-china","tag-chinese-table-tennis-association","tag-ctta","tag-il","tag-international-table-tennis-federation","tag-israel","tag-ittf","tag-mvp","tag-sports","tag-sun-yingsha","tag-table-tennis-england","tag-wang-manyu","tag-weibo","tag-world-championships","tag-world-team-table-tennis-championships"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}