Unacceptable Sounds in Democratic Society
Earlier this month, local Hong Kong media criticized Taiwan’s TSG Hawks baseball team’s cancellation of a Hong Kong singer’s scheduled post-game performance after receiving backlash from Taiwanese fans due to his history of pro-China remarks.
The organization’s announcement in late August that Daniel Chan Hiu-tung (陳曉東) would perform in Taipei led to disappointment on Taiwanese social media, with netizens largely pointing to posts dating back to the 2019 Hong Kong anti-extradition bill protests, which escalated due to police violence against protesters. At the time, Chan had reposted the hashtag “The Five-Star Red Flag has 1.4 Billion Defenders” (五星紅旗有14億護旗手), part of a patriotic campaign launched by CCTV in August 2019 in response to the unrest, when some protesters in Hong Kong removed Chinese flags from their poles. Hours after the initial performance announcement, TSG released a statement stating that Chan was no longer invited to participate, explaining that “there is certainly room for re-evaluation for this performance.”
Pro-China Hong Kong media was quick to jump to Chan’s defense: A report by Hong Kong China News Agency (香港中國通訊社) defended Chan’s remarks as a “support of justice,” adding that he was “maliciously accused” (惡意炒作) by “radical forces” (激進份子) in Taiwan. Jacky Chung Kit Ko (高松傑), a founding member of the pro-establishment Hong Kong Coalition (香港再出發大聯盟), which is also chaired by two former Hong Kong chief executives, criticized the cancellation in an op-ed for HK01 and pro-Beijing Bastille Post as “political repression” (政治打壓). Hong Kong’s TVB, citing a press conference by the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, stated that the cancellation was a deliberate attempt to stir division (煽動對立情緒) by DPP authorities — even though Chan’s performance was cancelled by a private company.
After the cancellation, Chan announced on his social media that he would still meet his fans, instead, at a Buddhist event taking place at the same venue.
Such politicized media backlash has been part of cross-strait entertainment exchanges for years — but the Taiwanese aren’t the only ones guilty of cancellations. Chinese releases of films featuring Taiwanese actors as Lawrence Ko (柯宇綸) and Irene Chen (陳艾琳) were scrapped by China for their “pro-Taiwanese independence” remarks during the 2014 Sunflower Movement, during which street protests and occupations of government buildings ended only after the withdrawal of a controversial trade pact with China.
But Chan’s cancellation is also a reflection of the shrinking space for pro-China voices in some Taiwanese spaces. The current Lai Ching-te (賴清德) administration has advanced the government’s securitized approach to Chinese individuals in Taiwan, rolling back efforts to integrate Chinese spouses and deporting three Chinese influencers in 2025 due to their pro-unification social media posts that the government said were a national security threat.
“There are different voices in any society,” commentator Zheng Wenxiang (鄭文祥), wrote for World Journal, the largest Chinese newspaper in the United States, “but that is ultimately a matter of (Chan and other celebrities’) own identity and choice.”