BNP Paribas branch in Shanghai. Photo: VCG

France-based international banking institution BNP Paribas late Tuesday altered its reference of Hong Kong and Taiwan after Chinese netizens called for a boycott of the bank and demanded that it be put on China's unreliable entity list, after the bank mislabeled Hong Kong and Taiwan as "independent countries."

The boycott came a day after the firm's improper handling of an employee who allegedly supports Hong Kong secessionism. 

BNP Paribas listed China's Taiwan island and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region on par with China on its website, sparking widespread outrage on Chinese social media.

Global Times reporters on Tuesday found that BNP Paribas' website lists Hong Kong and Taiwan without their motherland China, while Reunion Island in Africa, New Caledonia and other regions were clearly followed with "France."

BNP Paribas responded to the Global Times in an email on Tuesday, saying "we already use the term 'locations' on our websites and fully take into account the status of Hong Kong SAR [Special Administrative Region], Macao SAR and Taiwan as regions of China."

Late Tuesday, the bank altered its reference of Hong Kong and Taiwan as Hong Kong SAR and Taiwan, China. But it continues to list Hong Kong and Taiwan alongside China on its English-language website.  

Just one day before the incident, Chinese social media was filled with demands for the firm to dismiss one of its Hong Kong-based employees for supporting Hong Kong riots and secessionism, after netizens found a person named Jason Y. Ng, reportedly a BNP Paribas employee, who had made secessionist posts on his Facebook account.

BNP Paribas did not respond to the case on Tuesday, although it apologized in a Friday statement in a social media post for one of its unidentified employees. 

Ng called residents who waved China's national flags and sang the Chinese national anthem at the IFC Mall in Hong Kong "monkeys" in one Facebook post that has since been deleted, and showed photos of him with Joshua Wong Chi-fung, a Hong Kong separatist and activist of the illegal "Occupy Central" movement in 2014, eating together in another post. 

The continued scandals have put BNP Paribas's China business in danger, as Chinese netizens have been urging Chinese companies to cease cooperation with the firm and demanding it to be put on China's unreliable entity list. 

BNP Paribas is the latest global firm to face a backlash from Chinese netizens for its Hong Kong stance, following London-based banking giant HSBC, Amazon and the "Big Four" accounting firms.