These days, you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t.
Remember when S.H.E’s Hebe was slammed for posting a picture of herself eating pasta, because netizens thought she was supporting U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is of Italian descent?
Yeah, that really happened.
This time, Taiwanese Singer Jolin Tsai has joined the list of celebrities being targeted for their supposed political stance following Nancy Pelosi’s Visit to Taiwan.
What was her unforgivable act, you ask? Not much, really. In fact, she’s not done anything, which netizens took issue with.
Weibo Post First Sparked Rumours on Tsai’s Political Agenda
In a since-deleted Weibo post publish by China Media Group at 12pm on Thursday, 4 August, the company recommended Tsai’s tune, Womxnly (2018), and commended it for offering “an assurance to youth”.
While the post had not come from Tsai herself, many speculated that this was an indication of her stance on Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan.
You can watch this video to know why her visit caused such a hoo-ha:
As cancel culture typically goes, about 300,000 of her followers on Weibo unfollowed her following this. Currently, she still has over 42 million followers on her account.
As we know, Taiwanese youths have been relatively vocal about this issue. Many display confidence in Taiwan’s right and ability to defend itself against China’s use of force to bring what it deems as a “breakaway province” under its control.
This comes amidst China’s ongoing military drills conducted around Taiwan.
Tsai & Other Celebrities Called Out for Not saying “One China” on Weibo
Just minutes before Pelosi’s plane landed in Taiwan on 2 August, China’s CCTV News posted on its Weibo account a photo with the caption, “There is only one China in the world.”
Over 100 celebrities from China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong proceeded to outwardly show their support for the view by commenting on the post with the hashtag #ThereIsOnlyOneChina, as well as by reposting it on their Weibo accounts. This included artists like Charmaine Sheh, Angela Chang, Rainie Yang, Joe Chen and Amber Kuo.
Tsai was amongst the list of celebrities and artists who did not do so, and her last post was a picture of a hat she knitted, back on 18 July. This post garnered a few remarks from Chinese netizens, accusing her of supporting Taiwan’s independence from china.
The list, which was compiled by a blogger, had began to circulate on popular Chinese sites after the hashtag started trending, and showed that it not only included dozens of Taiwanese artists but also many American, British nationals, Singaporean, and Malaysian artists.
Stefanie Sun and JJ Lin were amongst the list of some 39 artists, who were besieged by Chinese fans for not reposting or commenting the hashtag #ThereIsOnlyOneChina.
Tsai has not come out to comment on the scrutiny.
Though we find it’s kind of absurd to demand that she even do so.
Other artists have also taken hits on their career for standing their ground on the political issue.
The ex-Fahrenheit member and Taiwanese actor Aaron Yan was dropped by his own fashion brand, ON IDentify, after he asked fans if they liked having a Taiwanese or American breakfast on Facebook.
Cancelled or not, that was a pretty witty move you’ve got to admit.
Image: Facebook (Jolin Tsai), Weibo (China Media Group)