TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — China filed a formal complaint against the Canadian embassy for printing T-shirts with a modified version of the rap group Wu-Tang Clan's logo for its alleged resemblance to a bat.

In recent days, Chinese social media users began sharing images of a T-shirt printed by a Canadian diplomat in Wuhan that modified the "W" logo for the rap group Wu-Tang Clan and inserted the words "Wu-Han" inside. On Tuesday (Feb. 2), China's Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin (汪文斌) stated: "We are very shocked by this and have lodged representations with Canada, asking for a thorough investigation and a clear explanation."

Wang said that he "lodged representations" with Canada and called for a complete investigation into the garb. He added that the coronavirus should never be attributed to specific countries or regions, although variants of the disease are being attributed to places such as the U.K., South Africa, Brazil, Japan, and the U.S on a daily basis.

Later that day, Canada expressed its regrets about any "misunderstanding" that resulted from the T-shirts. The recipient of the package of T-shirts was identified by Globe and Mail as Canadian diplomat Chad Hensler.

A Canadian Foreign Affairs official told the news agency that the T-shirts were meant to be gifts for diplomats who had flown to Wuhan at the early stages of the pandemic to help repatriate Canadian nationals. At the time, the team of diplomats had reportedly taken the nickname the "Wu-Han Clan."

The official stated that the T-shirts were purchased privately and also described the incident as a "misunderstanding." Chinese netizens had complained that the T-shirts were being used to "humiliate our country" and called it a "shameless" attack by Canada.

Since the start of the pandemic, China has sought to remove any link to or responsibility for the coronavirus pandemic, insisting that the location of the outbreak, Wuhan, not be included in the name of the disease. In addition, instead of referring to the disease by its original technical name, SARS-CoV-2, the World Health Organization (WHO) primarily refers to the disease as COVID-19, and some believe this was a result of pressure from China to avoid association with a second SARS outbreak.

Although scientists in both the West and China concur that the ultimate origin of COVID-19 is most likely bats, the communist regime is taking umbrage with the T-shirt logo's alleged resemblance to a bat. However, the originator of the logo, DJ and producer Ronald Bean, who created it in 1993, explained that it is the graffiti version of the letter "W," according to an interview he gave to hiphopgame.com in 2007.

It should be noted that, prior to the pandemic, the director of the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases at WIV, Shi Zhengli (石正麗), who proudly went by the moniker "Bat Woman," had since 2007 been researching how spike proteins in natural and chimeric SARS-like coronaviruses bind to the ACE2 receptors in the cells of humans, bats, and other animals. Since 2014, she and her team have carried out dangerous gain-of-function (GOF) experiments with bat coronavirus chimeras in their Wuhan laboratory, which has a track record of poor safety practices, including documented bites from potentially infectious bats.