John Cena Trending on Twitter for Apologizing to Fans in China for Calling Taiwan a Country

– WWE’s John Cena has become a hotbed for controversy today after a clip originally posted on the Chinese microblogging website, Sina Weibo, made its way stateside and quickly turned viral after it was shared and posted on Twitter. The clip features Cena apologizing to fans in China after referring to Taiwan as a country during a recent promotional interview for his new film, F9: The Fast Saga.

The South China Morning Post reports that Cena made the comment during a recent appearance on the Taiwanese broadcasting network TVBS during his promotional tour for the film. During the broadcast, Cena reportedly said that Taiwan was “the first country to watch the film.”

Cena’s comments were controversial in China, as the island of Taiwan has been governed independently from mainland China since 1949. The Chinese government views Taiwan as a “renegade province” it has vowed to eventually unify again with the mainland People’s Republic of China. Currently, Taiwan has its own democratically elected government. However, China does not view Taiwan as an independent, sovereign country.

In the video, Cena speaks in Mandarin and apologizes multiple times for his “mistake.” Here’s an English translation of the comments Cena made in the video, courtesy of the South China Morning Post:

“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. 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 apologize, I apologize, I’m very sorry. You must understand that I really love, really respect China and the Chinese people. My apologies. See you.”

As noted, China is a major market for the Fast and Furious franchise. After opening in the country on May 21, F9, starring Cena, has already grossed $137 million there, per Box Office Mojo.

Cena’s video on Weibo reportedly garnered more than 5,000 comments, with some accepting his apology and other users commenting that Cena should say that Taiwan is part of China. Now that the video is being shared on Twitter, it’s still a major trending topic as of this morning, and Cena is receiving a great deal of backlash for his comments of contrition.

F9: The Fast Saga, directed by Taiwanese-American filmmaker Justin Lin, is due out in US theaters on June 25.

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 Yizhou Xu, PhD (@JoeXu) May 24, 2021