Aimee Walker
John Cena has apologised over a remark he made about Taiwan, following backlash on social media.
The former professional wrestling champion has been slammed by citizens of China after he described Taiwan as being its own country in a promotional video for the latest Fast and Furious movie, reports the South China Morning Post.
In the broadcast, which aired on the network TVBS, the American allegedly referred to the island and said it would be ‘the first country to watch the film’.
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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
Although Taiwan has been governed independently since 1949, the Chinese government continues to refer to it as a ‘renegade province’.
So after realising his mistake, Cena shared a video message onto social media in which he said ‘sorry’ for his error.
In Mandarin, he stated: “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 were 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 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.”
However, some people who’ve viewed the clip have argued that the actor needs to do more to prove he’s sorry.
On the Chinese social media network Weibo, a person responded: “Please say ‘Taiwan is part of China’ in Chinese, otherwise we will not accept.”
Fortunately for Cena, many fans were much more forgiving and understood that he’d already paid the ‘price’ for his mistake by receiving such a backlash.
A fan commented: “I can feel that he really likes China… He said the wrong thing and paid the corresponding price.”
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