Chinese-born K-pop star Lay Zhang Yixing and his team have had a busy few days. So busy that the Exo member is now at risk of developing repetitive strain injury from his determined waving of the red and yellow flag.
As Hong Kong is roiled by ever-increasing unrest, Chinese celebrities are nailing their colours to the mast, revealing a uniform sea of scarlet red. But Zhang has gone above and beyond other Chinese stars who are scrambling to safeguard the integrity of the motherland.
The 27-year-old yesterday cancelled his contract as a smiling product holder for Samsung Electronics after the South Korean giant became the latest international company to be accused of damaging China’s “territorial integrity”.
Its crime? On its international website, Samsung offers separate language options for users in Hong Kong, Taiwan and China. The three appeared as choices in a list of countries or regions.
This came after Zhang gave an audacious warning to Calvin Klein – another company he represents – that he would cease draping its undergarments over his chiselled frame if it did not correct its “careless mistake”. And what was that mistake? Hong Kong and Taiwan are listed as “different regions”, separate from China, on its English-language website.
“Zhang deeply loves his country and supports the one China policy,” his representative posted on Weibo – China’s Twitter-like microblogging service – alongside the warning to Calvin Klein. “He is against any acts or words that split his country. All brands that collaborate with him should be careful about the issue.”
A whole bunch of brands have been embroiled in the territory row. On Monday, Chinese model Liu Wen pulled out of her role as a brand ambassador for luxury US handbag brand Coach over a T-shirt that fails to identify Hong Kong as part of China. Coach’s website also suggested that Hong Kong and Taiwan are separate from China.
Versace, Swarovski and Givenchy have also landed in hot water over the accidental promotion of Hong Kong as a separate country to China on their websites and T-shirts. Can we please have a moment’s silence for IT and design departments all over the world? For them, these are dark, confusing times.
I recently made the mistake of selecting “China” as the destination country for an online purchase to be delivered to my home in Hong Kong. After it eventually arrived in Guangdong, China’s province that borders Hong Kong, it took four months, numerous international phone calls and the payment of a hefty China duty tax to get hold of the order.
The same patriotism-neutral package would normally have arrived in seven working days, hassle free, if the correct destination was entered. And some still wonder why international vendors ask if their Chinese customers’ home addresses are in Hong Kong or Taiwan.
But back to Zhang. This sudden outburst of patriotism couldn’t be connected at all to the cancellation of his concert in Hong Kong this Saturday, could it? “Nobody would like to see what is happening in Hong Kong now,” Zhang’s studio posted on Monday night.
In fact, quite a few people would like to see what is happening in Hong Kong now. Zhang’s concert was supposed to be held at AsiaWorld-Expo – a stone’s throw from the recently besieged Hong Kong International Airport – but I guess his handlers prefer dry ice to tear gas as a backdrop.
The loss of one show in Hong Kong won’t really hurt Zhang. After leaving China to join the K-pop industry as a 16-year-old, he’s now earning 120 million yuan (US$17 million) a year, and was ranked 20th on the Forbes China Celebrity 100 list in 2017.
As the storm hitting Hong Kong intensifies, and Chinese influencers such as Zhang and Liu bend to the prevailing wind, it’s worth watching which way that wind is blowing. And don’t forget to question why they’re suddenly feeling the warm glow of patriotism in their cheeks.
In its Monday editorial on these international companies that have hurt the feelings of all Chinese people, Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily gave a good blow on the embers: “Especially during this ‘sensitive period’ of ‘pro-Hong Kong independence activists’ creating troubles, this kind of mistake is even more serious.”
Mistakes so serious that China’s pop culture icons are now being pushed to the front lines of Beijing’s propaganda war. But in this “sensitive period”, don’t expect the emergence of a China version of Denise Ho Wan-sze, the Hong Kong singer who has put her career on the line to fight for something other than an almighty red pile of renminbi.
Adam Wright is entertainment editor at the Post.