Musician and actress Ouyang Nana (歐陽娜娜) yesterday reignited public criticism for writing on a Chinese microblogging account: “Let our motherland be proud of us” after a post on Thursday that said: “I am proud to be Chinese.”
Ouyang reposted yesterday’s comment on Facebook, prompting more than 75,000 mostly critical comments and 4,000 shares.
The Chinese-language China Times on Friday published a story quoting Ouyang in an interview in China as encouraging Taiwanese to “bravely express themselves, unite and let the “motherland” be proud of us.”
Photo: Chen Yi-chuan, Taipei Times
The newspaper quoted her as saying that whether she were from Hong Kong, Beijing, Taiwan or anywhere else, she would still be “Chinese,” and this was her true feeling and came from the bottom of her heart.
The 18-year-old might have been pressed into making the statements in response to accusations from Chinese Internet commenters calling her a “Taiwanese separatist,” Chinese-language media reported.
The accusations might be rooted in a statement her father, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) spokesman Ouyang Lung (歐陽龍), made three years ago about Taiwan being a “country,” reports said.
At the time, Ouyang Lung was also accused by Chinese netizens of being a Taiwanese separatist.
After Ouyang Nana’s post on Thursday sparked controversy, Ouyang Lung said that his daughter was a “sacrificial victim of strained cross-strait relations,” and that she was not in the wrong for calling herself a “proud Chinese.”
His daughter has had her films dropped from Chinese television stations in recent months, which he said was probably because of the criticism of her.
Accusations against himself were also baseless, as he has always supported the so-called “1992 consensus,” Ouyang Lung said.
The “1992 consensus” is a term former Mainland Affairs Council chairman Su Chi (蘇起) in 2006 admitted making up in 2000 that refers to a tacit understanding between the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party that both sides of the Taiwan Strait acknowledge there is “one China,” with each side having its own interpretation of what “China” means.
Comments on Professional Technology Temple (PTT) — Taiwan’s largest academic online bulletin board — have mostly criticized Ouyang Nana.
One person wrote: “Have you gained your Chinese citizenship yet?” while another said: “This is absolutely not a performance. It’s quite frightening how powerful money is!”
One commenter claiming wrote that despite being ethnically Chinese, they were first and foremost Malaysian.
“If you ask me where I come from, I will say I’m from Malaysia, and I’m proud of that,” they wrote. “My identity is based on where I was born, where I grew up, where the food I eat is from and where my accent developed.”
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