K-pop’s Super Junior Choi Siwon apologises for ‘liking’ Hong Kong protest tweet

Chinese fans accuse star of supporting independence for the city and call for him to leave one of South Korea’s original mega boy bands

Choi offers ‘sincere apologies’ to his 16 million followers on mainland social media platform Weibo

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K-pop singer Choi Siwon from Super Junior has apologised to Chinese fans for “liking a news tweet about the Hong Kong protests. Photo: Handout

Published: 7:17pm, 25 Nov 2019Updated: 8:44pm, 25 Nov 2019

K-pop singer Choi Siwon from the popular boy band Super Junior has apologised to his 16 million Chinese fans for “liking” a South Korean news post on Twitter about the Hong Kong protests.

Choi, 33, liked – and later unliked – a Tweet from the South Korean newspaper Chosun on Sunday which linked to an interview with Chow Pak-kwan, the 21-year-old Hong Kong protester who was shot by a traffic policeman at point blank range on November 11.

Mainland internet users called for Choi to leave Super Junior, making him the latest public figure in the Asian entertainment world to spark an online backlash from nationalistic Chinese over alleged support for the anti-government protests in Hong Kong, now about to enter their sixth month.

Many commenters on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like social media platform, accused Choi of being a supporter of Hong Kong independence.

“You don’t know anything at all. Why did you even ‘like’ it?” read one top-rated comment on Choi’s page on Weibo.

“If you are really sincere in your apology, why don’t you put a statement on Facebook and Instagram? Don’t think that Chinese fans are all fools,” wrote another.

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