Arts & International Affairs: Volume 3, Issue 1, Spring 2018 | Page 62

KOREAN POPULAR CULTURE AND HISTORICAL SENSIBILITIES IN EAST ASIA
posted a message on Sina Weibo, accusing Tzuyu of waving the Taiwanese flag, arguing
that Chou is a pro-Taiwanese independence activist. While Huang is Taiwanese by
birth, he developed his career in the late 1990s in China and opposes Taiwanese independence.
He has often informed the Chinese government and netizens about individuals
who support Taiwan’s independence and their activities (Chung 2016). Huang’s post
about Tzuyu quickly spread on the Chinese Internet (Horwitz 2016). Chinese netizens
demanded that Chou and her group be banned from performing in China (Buckley and
Ramzy 2016).
To mainland China (People’s Republic of China), Taiwan is a “renegade” province. 6 Its
flag signals activism for an independent Taiwan (Horwitz 2016). Huang’s claim that
Chou Tzuyu is a “pro-Taiwanese independence” activist subsequently prompted the Chinese
Huawei Technology Company to demand that LG Uplus 7 drop Chou from endorsing
Huawei’s Y6 chain of cellphones (Chung 2016). Huawei happened to partner with
LG to promote sales in South Korea. A boycott campaign spread quickly in China and
the stock value of the girl-band’s owner, JYP Entertainment, plunged 5%. To contain the
controversy, JYP announced on 13 January that Tzuyu would stop performing in China.
JYP China posted on Weibo, emphasizing that neither JYP nor 16-year-old Tzuyu had
any political motive or position (Gibson 2016). Still, the storm did not subside.
On 15 January, JYP Entertainment posted a video on YouTube. In it, Tzuyu appears in a
black turtleneck standing against a gray wall. She bows then reads from a prepared text in
Chinese: “There is only one China. The two sides of the Strait are one. I have been proud
of being Chinese. I, as a Chinese person, made a mistake when promoting my activities
in Korea. This has caused some damage to my company and hurt the feelings of people
in Taiwan and China. I am very sorry and guilty for this. I have decided to stop all current
activities in China to examine my own actions. I am here again to apologize to everyone,
I am sorry.” 8 Park Jin-young, head of JYP Entertainment, also issued an apology on the
company’s official homepage. He emphasized that he apologizes to Chinese fans who
were hurt, stating that he learned the importance of respecting sovereignty, culture, history,
and people’s feelings of different countries he worked with (Buckley and Ramzy
2016). Tzuyu’s video went viral, hitting more than 2.6 million views within one day of
its release (Wang 2016). Within three days, the video had been watched more than 5.7
million times (BBC 2016). The apology video aimed to resolve the controversy, but generated
another stage of debate that swept Taiwan and South Korea.
6 China and Taiwan have been estranged as governments since 1949. The Chinese Communist Party
(CCP) defeated Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist Party or Kuomintang (hereafter, KMT), but the
Truman Administration allowed the KMT to seek refuge on the island of Taiwan. Chiang Kai-shek
withdrew to Taiwan with two million Chinese mainlanders. The US 7th Fleet has “kept the peace” ever
since.
7 This is a South Korean telecommunication company owned by LG Corporation, the country’s fourth
largest conglomerate.
8 YouTube, “TWICE Tzuyu Apology Explained (ENG),” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ju
YhFRGDVZI, accessed 17 January 2016.
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