Corporate America needs to stop this sh*t right now. Cena, as representative of Universal Studios (owned by NBCUniversal who make the multi-billion-dollar Fast & Furious franchise) offered this deeply offensive apology, in Mandarin no less.
Others will insist that this is a pollyannnish approach, and that business is business. In China, many wrote that his apology did not go far enough. “Please say in Chinese that Taiwan is part of China. Otherwise, we won’t accept it,” wrote one Weibo user. The message had over 3,200 likes.
If and when China invades Taiwan sometime this century to reclaim the sovereign territory as their own, it's craven, cowardly acts like this that will add up to China being allowed to do so.
Source: South China Morning Post
WWE superstar John Cena issued an apology to Chinese fans after calling Taiwan a country in a movie promotion interview.
“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. 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,” said Cena, who started learning Mandarin to help his wrestling promotion’s integration in China. He has since gone viral many times for his enthusiastic Mandarin-speaking abilities.
“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 apologise, I apologise, I’m very sorry. You must understand that I really love, really respect China and the Chinese people. My apologies. See you.”
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 Xu (@JoeXu) May 24, 2021
And with subtitles.
Per popular request, here's Mr. John Cena's apology video with English subtitles. I kept all the incoherence in the video, as well as the curious absence of what he's actually apologizing for pic.twitter.com/WmJlRcyOID
— Tony Lin 林東尼 (@tony_zy) May 25, 2021
