HONG KONG — Former NBA star Dwight Howard faced a wave of fury in China on Friday after referring to Taiwan as a “country” in a promotional video.
Howard, 37, made the comment when appearing alongside the island’s vice president, William Lai-Chingte, to promote a contest that will allow winners to spend a night in Taiwan’s presidential office.
“Since coming to Taiwan, I have gained a whole new appreciation for this country,” said the eight-time NBA All-Star, who signed as a free agent with the Taoyuan Leopards in the Taiwanese city of Taoyuan in November after leaving the angeles lakers
Lai, who plays the director of the commercial, also described Taiwan as a «free country» in the video released on Wednesday.
Howard, who is well known in China where the NBA is hugely popular, immediately faced backlash on the popular Chinese microblogging site Weibo, where “#HowardTaiwanindependence” began trending almost immediately.
By Friday, the hashtag had received almost 400 million views on the Twitter-like site, which is heavily censored by government moderators.
“You were my idol, but not anymore,” wrote one user. Another wrote that Taiwan was «an inseparable part of China,» reflecting Beijing’s policy toward the island, which lies about 100 miles off China’s southeast coast.
Beijing views Taiwan as an illegitimate breakaway province that is part of China’s territory. When the civil war in China between communists and nationalists ended in 1949 with the triumph of the former, the latter established a rival government in Taipei.
Since the 1970s, the US has only officially recognized China. Under the «One China» policy, Washington acknowledges Beijing’s position that Taiwan is part of China without endorsing it and maintains unofficial relations with Taipei.
In addition to the social media backlash, Howard was criticized by China’s hardline state nationalist tabloid The Global Times. In an editorial, the newspaper asked him to apologize.
His former editor, Hu Xijin, also took to Weibo to accuse Howard of being a “hurried person and seeking immediate benefits”. He said Howard was making «quick money» in Taiwan because he is aware that his popularity is fading.
Howard moved to clarify his comments Friday during a visit to an elementary school in northern Taiwan.
«If I offended anyone in China, I apologize,» he said. «It was not my intention to harm anyone with what I said in the commercial.»
He added that when he used the word «country», he did not mean that Taiwan was a sovereign nation.
However, some Weibo users were less than impressed. “This is not an apology, it is just a sophistry,” wrote one.
This is not the first time that a basketball star has drawn the ire of Chinese social media users.
In 2021, then-Boston Celtics center Enes Kanter came under fire after posting a video on social media calling Chinese President Xi Jinping a “brutal dictator” and expressing support for independence from the Tibet.
Tencent, which as the NBA’s digital streaming partner in China attracts half a billion viewers per season, later pulled a broadcast of the Celtics vs. New York Knicks game, and searches for Kanter’s name appeared to have been blocked on Weibo.
The center later changed its name to Enes Kanter Freedom.
Two years earlier, then-Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey apologized for a tweet in support of pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong after several sponsors walked out on the team.