Jackie Chan's China comments prompt backlash
Looks like he may have spent too much time in Hollywood and now his foot in mouth remark is coming back to haunt him in his own country.
HONG KONG (AP) - Action star Jackie Chan's comments wondering whether Chinese people "need to be controlled" have drawn sharp rebuke in his native
Hong Kong and in
Taiwan.
Chan told a business forum in the southern Chinese province of Hainan that a free society may not be beneficial for China's authoritarian mainland. "I'm not sure if it's good to have freedom or not," Chan said Saturday. "I'm gradually beginning to feel that we Chinese need to be controlled. If we're not being controlled, we'll
"He's insulted the Chinese people. Chinese people aren't pets," Hong Kong pro-democracy
legislator Leung Kwok-hung told
The Associated Press. "Chinese society needs a democratic system to protect human rights and rule of law." Another lawmaker,
Albert Ho, called the comments "racist," adding: "People around the world are running their own countries. Why can't Chinese do the same?"
just do what we want."
In democratically self-ruled Taiwan, which split from mainland
China during a civil war in 1949, legislator Huang Wei-che said Chan himself "has enjoyed freedom and democracy and has reaped the economic benefits of capitalism. But he has yet to grasp the true meaning of freedom and democracy." Chan's comments were reported by news outlets in Hong Kong and Taiwan, but were ignored by the mainland Chinese press.
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