Chinese netizens are threatening to boycott the variety show Running Man after citing a territorial issue between China and Taiwan in one of the show's games.
According to a report by All Kpop, a screenshot from the Running Man episode became viral on China's social media site Weibo. The Weibo user complained that when the Running Man cast played a game of Blue Marble, Taipei was given a separate tile from China's Beijing.
Blue Marble is a game similar to Monopoly, where players can buy property from cities worldwide.
According to the netizen, the show was promoting false information since Taiwan was a part of China.
Many Chinese netizens echoed the sentiment and posted videos and photos showing how they deleted Running Man from their watchlist. Because of the issue, the show trended on sixth place on Weibo's top topics.
Running Man fans from Korea also took to social media to defend the show. According to Korean netizens, they don't care if Chinese netizens stop watching it. Some called out the Chinese netizens for acting high and mighty when producing a copied version of Running Man.
This was not the first time that Chinese netizens attacked Korean shows and entertainers because of political issues. It can be recalled that BTS fans from China went on an attack against the group after RM made a speech to receive the Van Fleet Award, Washington Post reported.
In his speech, RM expressed a shared remembrance with Americans for losing many soldiers' lives during the Korean war. Chinese netizens took issue with the statement and said that BTS was promoting a one-sided view of history. They cited that thousands of Chinese lost their lives in the war, but they were being presented negatively. China sided with North Korea during the war.
Angered netizens went so far as to publicly share videos while they destroyed BTS merchandise. Major brands also pulled out BTS related content from their sites amid the backlash.
Last August, Chinese netizens also flooded Lee Hyori's Instagram with over a hundred thousand hate comments when the singer joked that she would take the surname Mao as her stage name for promoting Refund Expedition during an episode of Hang Out with Yoo, SCMP reported.
The netizens were angered over her perceived disrespect against Mao Zedong, the former leader of the Communist Party of China.
The show's production team debunked allegations that Lee Hyori deliberately maligned the Chinese leader, while fans rushed to defend her statement.
