Coach of China's national short track speed skating team, Viktor Ahn wearing a protective face mask looks on ahead of the short track speed skating event during the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games at Capital Indoor Stadium in Beijing, China on February 5, 2022. Photo: VCG

A Chinese dairy brand cut ties with Viktor Ahn Hyun-soo, technical adviser of China's short-track speed skating team, after the public criticized his wife's company for mistakenly listing Taiwan as a "country," while experts said that rational voices are needed.

The South Korean-born Russian short track speed skater, who was also coach of Team China during the Beijing 2022 Winter Games, found himself in the center of a controversy on Chinese social media after the incident. 

Though an apology was issued on Monday, Chinese dairy brand Junlebao announced on the same day it had finished its long cooperation with the world champion. 

The hashtag on the topic earned nearly 20 million views on Sina Weibo hours after the dairy brand published the notice, with some netizens angry with Ahn supporting the brand.

Yet, among the voices, many netizens also hold a more neutral opinion considering that the retired skater needs to be forgiven after his sincere apology. "For unintentional mistakes like this, I think we should forgive them instead of going too far in criticizing," said one comment under Ahn's apology posted on Sina Weibo.

The skater explained that everything turned out to be "an error on the default setting on the website" of his wife's company, Nari.

"I and my family have always stick to the one-China principle and apologize again," he said. A similar apology was also posted by Nari on Wednesday explaining that the website has been "maintained by a third-party company." They have asked the company to correct it.

Experts say that, as someone who has and is still making such a great contribution to China's sports, it is necessary for society to choose to "forgive if it was unintentional in the first place."

"For Ahn being such a transnational sports ambassador, it is in fact a good thing for him to apologize on time after the mistake. It would be inappropriate for people to hold on to this," Lü Chao, an expert on the Korean Peninsula at the Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.

"It is a normal reaction for people to have in sensitive topics like this. But we need to be calm to see the situations at the moment, instead of hurting a person who has helped the country a lot," Lü added.

Ahn is a retired South Korean-born Russian short-track speed skater. He joined the coaching staff for China's national short track team in 2020 and was the coach for the team during Beijing 2022.

As a top speed skater who won big in both Torino 2006 and Sochi 2014, Ahn came to help the Chinese team with his expertise as a technical coach. His contribution has helped athletes like Wu Dajing see enormous progress, which won the support of Chinese fans during Beijing Winter Olympic Games in February.