|
 Chou Tzuyu, the only Taiwanese member of South Korean K-pop
girl band Twice, inadvertently shot to the top of Taiwan's
election agenda at the weekend.
In a video released late on Friday by JYP Entertainment Corp
that quickly went viral, Chou said she felt proud to be Chinese
and that there was only one China, fuelling suspicion that the
agency may have pressured her to apologize to avoid upsetting
fans in mainland China, a key market.
The video shows Tzuyu apologizing and bowing. She had held the
flag in a TV show.
"An individual's conviction cannot or must not be forced by a
company and such a thing did not happen," JYP Entertainment, one
of South Korea's top talent management companies, said in a
statement on Monday.
"After Tzuyu's parents came to South Korea and discussed with
Tzuyu, they made a final decision and went ahead with announcing
her position," JYP added.
China considers self-ruled Taiwan a breakaway province of "one
China", ruled in Beijing, ineligible for country status or its
own flag.
[to top of second column] |
 Taiwan president-elect Tsai Ing-wen, from the
pro-independence opposition Democratic Progressive Party, told
reporters as she cast her vote that Chou's video had seriously
hurt the feelings of Taiwan people.
In Beijing, China's Taiwan Affairs Office said the spat was
being "used" by certain political forces in Taiwan to "stir up
the feelings of people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait".
A Seoul-based civic group, the Centre for Multi-Cultural Korea,
said it would file a request this week with South Korea's human
rights agency to investigate whether JYP Entertainment coerced
Chou.
The group said in a statement it considers the incident a "human
rights infringement".
(Editing by Tony Munroe and Nick Macfie)
[© 2016 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2016 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
