China’s Communist Youth League joins witch-hunt of film director Zhao Wei for using ‘pro-Taiwan-independence’ actor

China’s Communist Youth League, once the cradle of senior party officials, has joined the continuing witch-hunt against Chinese director and actress Zhao Wei for employing a Taiwanese actor allegedly involved in the pro-Taiwan-independence campaign in her forthcoming film.

Zhao’s new film, Mei You Bie de Ai, or “No Other Love”, has been under fire ever since April’s announcement of the cast, which revealed that Taiwan’s Leon Dai was to play the leading role.

The league took the online criticism of the film to a new level on Wednesday by publishing a lengthy article on the official Weibo page of the league’s Central Committee, which featured a compilation of online pictures and screen shots that it said proved how offensive Dai’s political stance was.

Entitled “Zhao Wei’s new film met with universal boycott by internet users”, the article included pictures of media reports, mostly from Taiwan, about Dai’s support for the “sunflower” student movement, universal suffrage and Occupy Central in Hong Kong.

Dai’s interview with Falungong sponsored television was also presented by the website as being anti-Beijing.

The article – initially censored and blocked on Weibo after it was published – was later able to be viewed normally.