Global Courant 2023-05-13 04:45:00
BEIJING – Former National Basketball Association (NBA) star player Dwight Howard has unleashed a wave of criticism on Chinese social media for calling Taiwan a country in a promotional video featuring Taiwan’s vice president.
The video, released Wednesday, showed the American basketball player supporting a campaign to allow a select number of foreign tourists to spend a night at Taiwan’s presidential office building.
“Hi everyone, I’m Dwight Howard, and since coming to Taiwan I’ve got a whole new appreciation for this country,” Howard said in the video.
China claims sovereignty over self-governed Taiwan, saying the island is not a separate country but part of “one China” controlled by Beijing. China says it will never refrain from using force to enforce its claims.
China’s insistence that Taiwan is not a country means that the island has been banned from many international organizations and its athletes compete in international tournaments under the banner of “Chinese Taipei”.
It wasn’t long before there was a backlash following the release of the video. The hashtag #HowardTaiwanindependence went viral on China’s Weibo social media platform, gaining nearly 400 million views on Friday.
Many people accused Howard of promoting Taiwan’s independence, which is anathema to Beijing.
Howard joined the Taoyuan Leopards, a professional Taiwanese team, last year. The most famous player to ever appear in Taiwan’s T1 League did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Vice President William Lai, a contender in next year’s presidential election in Taiwan, appeared with Howard and pretended to direct the video in which Mr. Lai refers to Taiwan as a “free country”.
The island’s government rejects China’s claims of sovereignty, saying only the Taiwanese people can decide their future.
The NBA is immensely popular in China and this wasn’t the first time people associated with the league have sparked controversy there.
In 2019, Chinese broadcasters stopped broadcasting Houston Rockets games after general manager Daryl Morey posted a message on Twitter in support of anti-government protests in Hong Kong.
A similar outcry came in 2021 when Boston Celtics center Enes Kanter denounced China’s treatment of ethnic Uighurs and other Muslims. REUTERS
