Gigabyte, a Taiwan-based laptop company with huge business interests on the Chinese mainland, recently went overboard with its praise of Taiwan-made products in an advertisement when it said that electronic products "Made in China" were of "low quality".

The comment invited the wrath of mainland consumers on social networking sites after which Gigabyte withdrew the advertisement and apologized saying the content published earlier "is seriously inconsistent with the facts" and that it was "caused by poor internal management by the company".

Gigabyte has every right to speak highly of its products, but it cannot bad-mouth its competitors. It is particularly foolish to claim that products made on the mainland are of poor quality when brands such as Lenovo, Huawei, Xiaomi and ZTE have made a mark for themselves.

Gigabyte has a large number of factories on the mainland and it makes profits thanks to its workers and consumers there. It should, therefore, focus on providing quality products and services to the mainland, instead of maligning it.

Gigabyte has apologized because it cannot afford to lose the mainland's huge market, but consumers and workers on the mainland are not going to forget that soon.

In the controversial advertisement, Gigabyte had also put "Taiwan" together with "China", and not "the Chinese mainland", which goes against the one-China principle.

Many on social networking sites guessed that some "pro-independence activists" might have hijacked the company to fulfill their selfish political goals.

It is time Gigabyte educated its staff and other Taiwan-based enterprises avoided being dragged into the abyss by those who question the one-China principle.