The forced apology of a Taiwanese entertainer, who landed in hot water for displaying a Republic of China (ROC) flag on a TV show in South Korea, helped drum up votes for the Democratic Progressive Party’s Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in Saturday’s presidential election, an academic said.
The only Taiwanese member of the South Korean girl group TWICE, Chou Tzu-yu (周子瑜), 16, was apparently forced to apologize for waving an ROC flag on a South Korean TV show. The singer’s response to the incident had an impact on Taiwanese voters and might have added about 1 to 2 percentage points to Tsai’s vote total on Saturday, Academia Sinica’s Institute of Sociology research fellow Michael Hsiao (蕭新煌) said.
The display of the flag drew an angry response from fans in China after a China-based Taiwanese singer, Huang An (黃安), called Chou a supporter of Taiwanese independence. The allegation reportedly cost Chou an endorsement deal with a Chinese smartphone vendor.
Just hours before Taiwan went to the polls, a video clip was released on Friday evening in which Chou said that “there is only one China... I have always felt proud of being Chinese,” while seemingly reading from a prepared text in a shaking voice.
It was an apology that “profoundly affected people,” Hsiao said.
Chou’s wan and sallow appearance on the video sparked an outcry from Taiwanese netizens, who said that the young entertainer was forced to declare she is Chinese, drawing comparisons to Islamic State hostages.
In protest, Taiwanese returned home to cast their votes, social media posts said.
Psychiatrist Kung Fan-chin (孔繁錦) said that had the Chou case happened earlier it would not have affected election results, but because it happened on Friday voters reacted immediately.
The apology was a commercial move by Chou’s management company to save her career as an entertainer, Kung said, but the case evoked “the deepest fears” of Taiwanese that they could be forced to give up their nationality if they wanted to do business with China, he said.
The incident caused online conflict between young Internet users in Taiwan and China, said Chang Wu-yueh (張五岳) director of the Graduate Institute of China Studies at Tamkang University. The case also exposed the unstable side of cross-strait relations, he added, urging Tsai to seek mutual trust with high-ranking officials in Beijing and act to lower misgivings between Taiwanese and Chinese.
“Peace and stability will mean nothing if there is no mutual trust,” Chang said.
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