Why are beautiful women always on CCP’s nerves? No, I am not talking about Chinese Communist Party carders’ lust and avariciousness over women and sex, or their now almost open, numerous extra-marital affairs or concubines and Er Nai (second wife or mistress). What I am saying is that many beautiful, popular and often young women, singers and actresses from Hong Kong or Taiwan are nowadays increasingly causing the Chinese leadership to not sleep soundly at night. The latest of which is Denise Ho, originally from Shunde, Canton, and now a Hong Kong singer and actress with Canadian citizenship.
As almost everyone knows by now, Denise Ho got into trouble because she met upon her 39th birthday Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader and then she was cursed and attacked by Global Times, a CCP mouthpiece based in Beijing and owned by People’s Daily. What shocked and angered people from the free world is that Lancôme, a brand of French luxury perfumes and cosmetics house and part of the L'Oréal Luxury Products division, cancelled a concert of Ho for “security” reasons. Now sales of Lancôme in Chinese diaspora will see a decline, at least for a little while.
To be truthful and thoughtful, this is not the first time the CCP is at odds with beautiful women of Taiwan and Hong Kong. Remember Chou Tzu-Yu? A 16-year-old singer from Tainan who made her name very well known in South Korea with the women’s singing group TWICE? That poor little girl had to cry to beg for forgiveness, only because she showed the flag of Republic of Taiwan (ROC), her home state, and the appearance was reported by another, jealous male artist. Only after she proclaimed that she was Chinese, was her group allowed to sing again in China and her records sold again in the China market. It was again the Global Times that was leading the charge.
Another singer that was on CCP’s nerve was Deserts Chang, this time in Great Britain. When Chang was singing at a concert at the University of Manchester, she introduced her homeland of Taiwan while showcasing a ROC flag. To be fair, what other flag could she use if not the national flag of ROC? The flag of PROC (People’s Republic of China) which does not even have jurisprudence over Taiwan?
Enter Chang Hui-mei, or A mei, another Taiwanese singer. This took place back in May 20, 2000 when A mei was invited to sing at the inauguration ceremony of Chen Shui-bian, the first president (2000-2008) of Taiwan from the Democratic Progressive Party that replaced the long ruling Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). That singing ended A-mei’s performance career in mainland China.
In fact, performing artists are not the only ones that CCP elites felt uncomfortable with, some of us may still remember Hu Na, a young Chinese professional tennis player who sought political asylum in 1983 after jumping ship from Chinese national team that was competing in America. I remember that then US President Ronald Reagan played a key role in extending protection over her. After Hu Na became a US citizen and then a Taiwanese citizen, she trained many young Taiwanese tennis players. Then in 2014, when the athlete- turned-painter was hosting a painting exhibition in China, she was blasted and humiliated publicly, and was told to “get out of China” by CCP controlled media, all because she sought freedom from Communist rule 30 years prior.
While, Lancôme is, after all, only trying to sell something to women worldwide to make them prettier, and neither Lancôme nor L'Oréal, I believe, would like to be dragged into something ugly like this. Remember this is a French brand, and French people are known for their love affairs with liberty and freedom. So when leaders of freedom turned themselves into yes-man to an authoritarian regime, in addition to blaming the bourgeois capitalists, who else is to blame for turning performing arts into proliferating hostility among people?
One can’t help but wonder, why does CCP, a party with 80 million members, seem to always be at odds with young women, beautiful, popular young women? The reason is actually quite simple: these young, female popular artists are good at what they are doing, but probably not so good at recognizing the nuances of politics, political correctness and the intricacies of balancing between freedom in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and the control freak regime of Beijing. But, just because they are not that attentive in attending Beijing’s appetite and desires, and also because as populist performers, they are more likely to speak the minds of ordinary citizens, that’s why they are always at odds with the regime in Beijing.
In business, this is called guerrilla marketing, where an army of novice soldiers rushed in to the battlefield with a shoe string budget and without knowing too much about what’s going on. Exactly, just because these are not professional players in politics, so they were telling the cold, hard truth as is, and they are very well received by the masses. Naturally, when people are speaking, or some pretty women are speaking on behalf of the masses, some in Beijing got to be perturbed deeply about it.
Dr. Frank Tian Xie is John M. Olin Palmetto professor of business and associate professor of marketing at the University of South Carolina—Aiken, in Aiken, S.C.
