Tzuyu Incident
| Tzuyu Incident | |||||||||
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| Traditional Chinese | 周子瑜國旗事件 | ||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 周子瑜国旗事件 | ||||||||
| Literal meaning | Chou Tzu-yu flag incident | ||||||||
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The Tzuyu Incident or Tzuyu Scandal happened in late 2015 when Huang An, a pro-unification Taiwanese entertainer, accused Tzuyu, a Taiwanese member of South Korean girl group Twice who carried the flag of Taiwan on an episode of My Little Television, of supporting Taiwanese Separatists. Huang's post on Weibo sparked anti-Taiwanese sentiment among mainland Chinese netizens, which led to a boycott of Tzuyu, Twice, and their management company JYP Entertainment. This resulted in the cancellation of Tzuyu's mobile advertising model contract, and Twice's pre-booked performance in China. An apology video was uploaded to JYP Entertainment's official YouTube channel on January 15 in which she described herself as "Chinese".
The apology video was released on the eve of the 2016 Taiwanese presidential election; after the election, a think tank poll pointed out that the Tzuyu Incident affected about 10 percent of the vote, benefiting the pan-green Democratic Progressive Party and the centrist People First Party. Three candidates, Tsai Ing-wen, Eric Chu and James Soong, as well as Ma Ying-jeou, then president of Taiwan, publicly supported Tzuyu. The incident sparked anti-Chinese and anti-South Korean sentiment among the Taiwanese people.