Jolin Tsai and Eason Chan’s coronavirus tribute video slammed on social media, accused of being pro-China propaganda

Hong Kong and Taiwanese singers’ Fight as One was released on YouTube to praise front-line medical workers and encourage people during the coronavirus lockdown
It attracted a storm of dislikes online, accused of promoting China and downplaying the severity of the crisis

Music

Haneesa Begum

Published: 12:45pm, 14 Apr 2020

Why you can trust SCMP

Hong Kong Canto-pop star Eason Chan Yick-shun and Taiwanese singer-songwriter Jolin Tsai have been accused of creating “Chinese propaganda” in a new song intended to pay tribute to medical workers fighting the coronavirus and provide encouragement to the public amid the pandemic.

The duet, titled Fight as One, was performed in English and recorded in separate studios by the two singers in a collaboration with mainland Chinese media company the Yunnan Media Group.

However, the tribute song appears to have backfired on social media, with the music video – released on YouTube on April 3 – receiving around 85,000 dislikes compared to around 20,000 likes.

Many internet users have described the music video as propaganda aimed at improving the image of China, which has been tainted by the coronavirus outbreak. The first cluster of cases of Covid-19, the disease the virus causes, was reported in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

A still from Eason Chan and Jolin Tsai’s tribute song Fight as One.

While the music video highlights how the coronavirus has affected different countries using shots of people in quarantine and wearing masks, and front-line medical workers, internet users have pointed to various scenes and lyrics that seem to promote China.

The YouTube video has received a deluge of negative comments, as well as direct criticism of Chan and Tsai.

One commentator, using the acronym for China’s ruling Chinese Communist Party, posted that it was “shocking” these artists were “cooperating with CCP’s outreach”, while another accused the duo of singing for “Chinese RMB”, and not for those “struggling with the CCP virus”. (RMB is short for renminbi, also called yuan – the Chinese currency.)

Tsai and Chan were accused of spreading the wrong message through one verse in particular: “It’s really not that bad if you think about it/ For once the world has come together/ Could’ve been much worse, you think about it/ At least we’re not fighting one another.”

One YouTube user said the lyrics downplayed the severity of the situation and said people who had lost their loved ones could not be with each other and could not fight together. The user added: “I don’t know how ‘This is not that bad’. It is that bad.” A Twitter user also criticised the chorus, equating it with “brainwashing”.

Many commenters also took issue with a 10-second photo montage that shows children from all over the world holding up drawings of the flag of China or messages thanking and supporting China in various languages.

Internet users were quick to point out that the words “Thank you China” kept appearing in the video.

One comment said: “How disgusting [is it] that the people are holding a card [saying] ‘Thank you China’ … It’s a kind of propaganda.”

The music video was further criticised for leaving out photographs of medical workers from Hong Kong and Taiwan, where Chan and Tsai hail from. One YouTube user commented: “Why should we thank China? Why aren’t there any pictures about [sic] Taiwan’s medical system? Shame on you …”

Similar sentiments were shared by an internet user on Twitter, who questioned why the duo from Hong Kong and Taiwan were collaborating on a project to promote mainland China.

Tsai, who uploaded the music video to her Facebook page on April 3, has responded to the backlash. In a post on April 6, the 39-year-old celebrity posted that she felt “small” in the bigger scheme of things, and thanked those who had been by her side. She acknowledged that her reputation might suffer in the future.

At the time of writing, Chan had not responded to the controversy.