A China-based Taiwanese singer who drew public ire after criticizing a Taiwanese K-pop singer for waving a Republic of China (ROC) flag said he would hold a news conference in Taiwan on Feb. 3 to tell his side of the story.
Huang An (黃安) accused 16-year-old Chou Tzu-yu (周子瑜), the Taiwanese member of the South Korean girl band TWICE, of supporting Taiwanese independence after she waved an ROC flag on a South Korean TV show.
The tip-off led to widespread criticizm of Chou in China.
An endorsement deal her group had with Chinese smartphone maker Huawei was jeopardized by Chou’s so-called pro-Taiwanese independence attitude.
Chou apologized to her management company JYP Entertainment and her Chinese and Taiwanese fans in a video released on YouTube on Friday, saying: “There is only one China... I have always felt proud of being Chinese.”
Park Jin-young, head of JYP Entertainment, also apologized.
The incident caused outrage among Taiwanese, who saw it as China bullying a teenager who was waving her nation’s flag.
The incident might have boosted president-elect Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) votes by 1 to 2 percentage points in Saturday’s election, said Michael Hsiao (蕭新煌), a research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Sociology.
Huang wrote on Weibo on Sunday that he was not the culprit in the incident, saying that he was “lucky to become” a singer who could influence “Taiwan’s election.”
He said he would explain “the whole story” behind the incident and present the truth.
Huang said in a Weibo post on Monday last week that he was not associating waving the ROC flag with Taiwan independence, but the issue was what the person waving the flag stood for.
Pro-independence Taiwanese media were using the incident to manufacture provocative headlines to incite Chinese, Huang said, adding that Chou must be working with them unless she says otherwise.
There are many people who could trigger sensitive issues between China and Taiwan, since almost everyone has a Facebook account, former Mainland Affairs Council chairman and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Lawmaker Su Chi (蘇起) said on Sunday.
People should remain calm and set their sights on the common good when dealing with issues regarding cross-strait relations, Su said.
WANG RELEASED: A police investigation showed that an organized crime group allegedly taught their clients how to pretend to be sick during medical exams Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) and 11 others were released on bail yesterday, after being questioned for allegedly dodging compulsory military service or forging documents to help others avoid serving. Wang, 33, was catapulted into stardom for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代). Lately, he has been focusing on developing his entertainment career in China. The New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office last month began investigating an organized crime group that is allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified documents. Police in New Taipei City Yonghe Precinct at the end of last month arrested the main suspect,
A cat named Mikan (蜜柑) has brought in revenue of more than NT$10 million (US$305,390) for the Kaohsiung MRT last year. Mikan, born on April 4, 2020, was a stray cat before being adopted by personnel of Kaohsiung MRT’s Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station. Mikan was named after a Japanese term for mandarin orange due to his color and because he looks like an orange when curled up. He was named “station master” of Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station in September 2020, and has since become famous. With Kaohsiung MRT’s branding, along with the release of a set of cultural and creative products, station master Mikan
Eleven people, including actor Darren Wang (王大陸), were taken into custody today for questioning regarding the evasion of compulsory military service and document forgery, the New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said. Eight of the people, including Wang, are suspected of evading military service, while three are suspected of forging medical documents to assist them, the report said. They are all being questioned by police and would later be transferred to the prosecutors’ office for further investigation. Three men surnamed Lee (李), Chang (張) and Lin (林) are suspected of improperly assisting conscripts in changing their military classification from “stand-by
LITTORAL REGIMENTS: The US Marine Corps is transitioning to an ‘island hopping’ strategy to counterattack Beijing’s area denial strategy The US Marine Corps (USMC) has introduced new anti-drone systems to bolster air defense in the Pacific island chain amid growing Chinese military influence in the region, The Telegraph reported on Sunday. The new Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS) Mk 1 is being developed to counter “the growing menace of unmanned aerial systems,” it cited the Marine Corps as saying. China has constructed a powerful defense mechanism in the Pacific Ocean west of the first island chain by deploying weapons such as rockets, submarines and anti-ship missiles — which is part of its anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy against adversaries — the
RSS