John Cena apologizes to fans in China following Taiwan comment
John Cena has issued an apology to China after referring to Taiwan as a country while doing Fast9 media.
The South China Morning Post reports that during the interview on Taiwanese TV, Cena referred to Taiwan as “the first country to watch” the new movie.
Cena referred to Taiwan as a country during an interview with TVBS, which led to major backlash from Chinese fans. He then took to the Sina Weibo social media platform and issued an apology. He did not directly mention Taiwan or its relationship to China, but he apologized and said he really loves and respects the people of China.
“Hi China, I’m John Cena. I’m in the middle of Fast and Furious 9 promotions. I’m doing a lot of interviews. I made a mistake in one of my interviews,” Cena said in his apology video. “Everyone was asking me if I could use Chinese – [movie] staff gave me a lot of information, so there was a lot of interviews and information.
“I made one mistake. I have to say something very, very, very important now. I love and respect China and Chinese people. I’m very, very sorry about my mistake. I apologize, I apologize, I’m very sorry. You must understand that I really love, really respect China and the Chinese people. My apologies. See you.”
There are more than 5,000 replies to Cena’s Weibo video apology, with some saying they won’t accept the apology until Cena states in Chinese that Taiwan is a part of China. Fans in mainland China were outraged as Beijing insists that the self-ruled island is an indispensable part of the country, not on its own.
Universal Pictures previously chose Taiwan for its global premiere of the Fast & Furious 9 movie. The movie was released a few days later in mainland China. The movie was directed by Taiwanese-American director Justin Lin.
You can see Cena’s post below:
John Cena apologized in Chinese on Sina Weibo after calling Taiwan a country during an interview promoting Fast & Furious 9 pic.twitter.com/dzRKIYgEzL
— Joe Yizhou Xu, PhD (@JoeXu) May 24, 2021
