It was really quite predictable that he’d get slammed for this. Chinese netizens are saying his apology wasn’t good enough because he didn’t say “Taiwan is part of China”. So he’s not only lost his Western audience, he’s lost his Chinese one too.
What on earth was he thinking? Sure, if he’d stood up and poked China by saying “I meant what I said, Taiwan is a country”, he would have lost a lot of Chinese eyeballs. But he would have retained his self-respect, and probably gained some fans elsewhere.
One day people will realize the South Park apology is the gold standard for any and all Chinese backlash. The show was banned in China afterwards, which means everyone in China just used their VPNs to watch it.
He’s a box office draw. I’m sure he can grow a spine and not lose out on many jobs. If F9 won’t tough him because they’re cucked by China, there’s always other movie studios where getting John Cena involved will offset any losses by a China ban.
Plus he has a networth of 60 million. I’m sure he’ll survive without having to bootlick a genocidal snowflake.
You’re right that he could easily take the moral stand here. However, to pretend that he could just say f- China and not suffer career consequences is naive.
He doesn’t need to do that either. But right now he is capitulating to chinese netizens for probably mentioning taiwan in passing at some point in his life.
Which btw doesn’t work, they will just ask for more hoops to jump though.
He would have been better off ignoring it and letting the chinese netizen shit storm dissipate and not ruining his image in the west.
Are you sure he would loose Chinese eyeballs or would people be still following him on the “gray market” websites?
Are these so-called net-citizens doing this because they believe the message or are they doing it for a reward or to avoid punishment?
I don’t think he licked the boots of the CCP. He made a non-apology apology in Chinese and declined to take a strong stand either way. I think he did so for the reason I stated above.
