China: Gamer flag controversy

Liu You-chen, a Taiwanese E-sport player, suddenly displayed a Republic of China flag while he accepted a bronze medal at the award ceremony of World Cyber Games (WCG) 2007, which took place in Seattle USA. The actions immediately infuriated the players like Sha Junchun (aka PJ) and Li Xiaofeng (aka SKY) and members of media from China. The Taiwan media United Daily News reported two Chinese gamers insulted and badgered Taiwan competitors until police and event organizers quickly separated them.

Li Xiaofeng, one of the most famous gamer in mainland, explains his compulsion at the WCG finals in his personal blog at star sports:

WE.SKY看WCG国旗门事件:事情的真相如此而已
ECP电竞中文门户 2007-10-12 10:28:00
关于之前在WCG赛场颁奖时的三两事看到论坛里有些人在议论的比较多。出来随便说下吧,当时的那种情况,确实很难让人接受。
做为一个中国人,在从小就接受教育的同时,在我心里也一直认为台湾的同胞就是和我们一起的。
当然后来慢慢的长大后也懂的了很多,和朋友之间也经常聊起这种事情,有亢奋的,有无奈的,总之都是中国人的现实,在我与朋友的内心里从未改变过。
当时在那里我们已经向WCG组委会提出了交涉,只是后来由于台湾那边的领队措辞过于激人,所以引发了冲突。
当然,我从不会因为这种事情而改变自己对台湾那边的朋友的看法,只是在有些时候,有些场合下,作为一个中国人,我们都会为之尽到国人的义务。
至于什么所谓的围剿什么什么的,媒体的说法,他们想怎么说就怎么说吧,人人都有一张嘴。
公道自在人心。
总之此事,中国WCG组委会已经因为台湾队伍里的少数那几个人的小动作,已经向WCG组委会提出了。
来自宝岛的WAR3朋友,希望我们彼此以后能够有更多的交流!(和台湾的WAR3朋友一起交流也并不是一两天了,我相信彼此之间我们是熟悉的,不要因为一两个人的不愉快而影响到我们彼此之间的友情)
PS:(我并不是一个记者,详细的事情经过我相信会有人出来说明的,作为一个中国人,我完全有必要在我们的团队在外面为我们的国家争取自己的利益,贡献出我自己的力量)

WE.SKY Sees WCG Flag-gate Case: The Truth is just So-so
ECP Chinese Electronic Portal 2007-10-12 10:28:00

I see a lot of people are talking about the things happened at the WCG award ceremony. Telling at will, the situation at that time did make me too sad to accept what had happened.
As a Chinese, educated from the very beginning, I always believe the compatriots in Taiwan are standing with us.
Of course, when I gradually grew up I had learned more about it. Talking such kind of issues with my friends, some of them felt stimulated while some of them felt there’s no alternative. Anyway, it’s the reality of Chinese and the belief in our mind has never changed.
At that time, we had made representations with WCG Committee. Subsequently, It’s the Taiwan team leader’s sharp words that caused the conflicts.
Of course, Such kind of things have never changed my views to the friends in Taiwan. However, at some time, under some occasions, being a Chinese, we all have the duty to do something.
As to the attack from all sides or whatever, it’s the media’s spin. Just let it go because everyone has the rights to speak.
Justice will always prevail.
Anyway, China WCG Committee has reported someone’s petty actions in Taiwan team to the WCG Committee.
WAR3 friends from Taiwan, I wish more mutual understanding between us from now on! (It’s not for one or two days that we have communicated with WAR3 friends of Taiwan. I believe we actually know each other and don’t let one or two people affect our friendship)

P.S. (I’m not a reporter and I believe someone will introduce the concrete process of this event. Being a Chinese, It’s absolutely necessary for me to strive interests of our country and devote my own efforts while our team compete abroad.)

Although Li Xiaofeng displayed a mild tune in his blog, lots of netizens in mainland strongly supported Sha Junchun and Li Xiaofeng’s behavior in this event and they did believe what they had done was patriotic and responsible.

Here are two comments from Li's blog:

Ygod 发表于 2007-10-14 16:56:29
公道自在人心 爱国是做人的根本

Ygod posted: 2007-10-14 16:56:29
Justice will always prevail.
Patriotism is the essential to be a good man.

Kyo.陈 发表于 2007-10-12 13:15:55
支持中国选手的做法!!!!
少数的极端份子,是不能得逞的!!
我也看到结果了,WCG组委会对台湾WCG代表队提出了谴责,
而台湾代表队也道歉了!!
中国人民永远是团结一心的!
SKY,好样的 ,
还有FLY,PJ
你们都是中国人的骄傲!!
永远支持你们!!

Kyo.Chen posted: 2007-10-12 13:15:55
Support the behavior of Chinese players!!!!
The ultra-minority can never gain their purpose!!
I have seen the results. The WCG Committee has condemned the Taiwan team, and the Taiwan team has apologized!!
The Chinese people will hold together for ever!
Good work, Sky!
So do Fly and PJ.
You are the proud of China!!
Support you for ever!!

An anonymous netizen at Sohu’s blog community has a more impetuous attitude to Taiwan:

发布者 搜狐网友 2007-10-12 21:03
坚决支持! 扎反!
什么台湾民众! 都是大陆子民,还在上面舞国旗,什么概念?
如果打台湾,我们学校所有人同学都会参战!!

Posted by Sohu netizen
Strongly support (the China team’s behavior)! Strongly oppose (to the Taiwan team)!
What the Taiwanese! (you are) All the sons and daughters of the mainland; how can you display a country flag there? What do you mean?
If (mainland) attack Taiwan, all the people in our school will take part in the war!!

A netizen named Feng Guangsile (means very famous) gives his opinion on Taiwan’s report at club.china.com:

作者:风光死了 发表于:2007-10-09 12:52:04

事件是真,确有冲突,照片为证。
人物也没错,照片拍得很清楚,好几个中国的小伙子,挺帅。
漫骂也许有,年轻人火气大,特别是李晓峰刚刚输了比赛,心情不会好。
打人则未必,看照片上当时在场人数众多,众目睽睽下发生的事情事后否认得了吗?
但我想不通中国人怎么会骂别人“中国猪”,那不是连自己一块骂了么?不可能有这样的事情,想必是现场有人大声朗诵这个词,媒体找不到朗诵者于是想当然的把屎盆子扣在了中国人的身上,很没有技术含量。
新闻自由了!也不见得都说真话.

Author: Feng Guangsile posted: :2007-10-09 12:52:04
The event is true. Surely there’s a conflict which is proved by the photos.
The persons involved are also quite sure. The photos were photographed very clearly — a number of Chinese youth, who are pretty handsome.
Maybe there’s abuse. The youth are always irascible. Especially to Li Xiaofeng, who had just lost the game, he was obviously not in a good mood.
I don’t think there are physical assaults. According to the photos, we can see a lot of people were present; would they deny what they had done in the full light of public notice?
However, I can’t understand how Chinese people call others “Chinese Pig”. Isn’t it insulting ourselves, so such kind of things can never happen. I supposed there must be someone present who loudly spoke this word; the media couldn’t find out the speaker, so they threw the shit to Chinese. It’s really not smart.
Although there’s freedom of the press, it doesn’t mean they always tell the truth.

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Even though, there were still a few of netizens in mainland who were against the Chinese players’ impetuous behavior to the Taiwanese.

Some anonymous netizens show their different opinions at Sina’s blog community:

[匿名] 新浪网友
2007-10-10 13:30:51
不支持SKY和PJ的这种形为.一点也没有风度.台湾是不是国家不是你\我\他都能说的算的.这不是一个电竞选手和电竞爱好者能分清的事实.政治的东西应该交给政治.而不是交给向征和平友谊的电竞选手.

[Anonymous] Sina netizen
2007-10-10 13:30:51
I don’t support the SKY and PJ’s behavior, which has no manners. Whether Taiwan is a country or not is not decided by you/me/him. It’s not a thing that an E-sport player or a hobbyist can figure out. The politics must be handed by the politics, but not by the E-sport players who represents peace and friendship.

[匿名] 新浪网友
2007-10-10 13:33:21
看看以上这些所为的爱国青年的留言吧.我现在终于知道为什么台湾要独立了.真是可悲.我真的希望国人能真正的把台湾当做自己的领土.但现在好像事实正好相反.如果我们永远用这种态度.我想台湾永远不会回来.

[Anonymity] Sina netizen
2007-10-10 13:33:21
Look at the above comments which are written by those so called patriotic youth. I finally see why the Taiwanese want to be independent. What a pity! I truly hope people in mainland can really regard Taiwan as one part of China. But now it’s quite on the contrary. If we always hold this attitude to them, I think Taiwan will never come back.

18 comments

  • TRUST

    This GVO entry selected voices from China (PRC), which mostly take Taiwan (ROC) as a part of China for granted, makes me wonder that global voice online may be subject to bias.

    That boy showed the flag of Republic of China (ROC, Taiwan), which means he identified himself as a Chinese. But those reactive Chinese competitors’s action deprived his human right to being pride of a people from Republic of China.

    This rude action just makes people in Taiwan (ROC) dislike the China (PRC), which is under the ruling power of Chinese Communist Party.

    Taiwan, i.e. the Republic of China, is a democratic and free country. On the contrary, the People’s Republic of China, is a totalist country. Why should Chinese flag from the free land should be suppressed by the totalist part of China? I don’t see that!

    (Don’t forget, the PRC China is a supporter of the Burmese junta government and Darfur civil conflicts. How can this kind of government represent China?)

    The world should support all the Chinese who embrace democracy, freedom, human right, love and peace; and condemn the opposite ones.

    The world should teach Chinese people accept the state of free China and reject the state of unfree China.

    PS. Many Chinese people under the thinking and speech control of the China government are taught by limited information about the affairs and history across the strait. I feel sorry about this. I hope freedom can prevails China as soon as possible so that all of us can understand the truth and think cosmopolitanly.

  • David

    I guess here GVO only reflects the ideas of Chinese in mainland. That’s why we see GVO,isn’t it? If GVO only shows our ideas,how can we know what the Chinese in mainland are thinking about? The comments are bias,however,they just reflect the PRC people’s opinion on this ridiculous thing. From the Chinese comments, we know why the PRC’s competitors did that brutal thing.They are “educated from the very beginning”.

  • WCG國旗事件的「真相」…

    Global Voices Online上出現了一篇《Taiwan: Gamer flag controversy》,談的是WCG國旗事件中,中國網友的反應。有爭議的地方是,在這篇報導中,雖然標題和分類都是台灣,但是內文所引用的論壇/發言,…

  • Charles Liu

    I hope Chinese Taipei team will displine their players who violated agreed upon rules that is supposed to keep competition pure and politics out as much as possible.

    Take a look at the official WCG site, and the Chinese Taipei team flag representing Taiwan:

    http://us.worldcybergames.com/sp/web/us.asp

    Still think the bad behavior is only one side?

  • I have changed back the title to China: gamer flag controversy.

    Believe me, it is a mistake by the editor, the writer is new to gv and has little knowledge of our guideline.

    The first step to communication is to get to know what others opinions are, even though we may disagree. and there are many people with good intention try to understand the issue from both sides and try to bridge the gap, like the post from 1510: http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/10/11/china-sorry-to-taiwan-fellow/

  • @Trust and David:
    Instead of wondering and guessing, please note that GVO has both a Taiwan and a China section; instead of focussing on one and calling it bias, something that is inevitable to avoid in any case, I’d hope that everyone finds the time to read both. That said, which of you are interested in contributing to GVO?

    I’m sorry that my decision to put a “Taiwan” header upset the two of you. This was my mistake, and I apologize to you, and Meng as well, for making this change without seeking his approval first. I rest assured, now, that a “China” header would not have offended anyone.

    I’m really touched by several of the points that TRUST makes, and I’d like to re-post just one here:

    “The world should support all the Chinese who embrace democracy, freedom, human right, love and peace; and condemn the opposite ones.”

  • ifan

    Hi Meng and Oiwan,
    To write an article for GVO, the author should take the responsibility of conveying the truth.
    Although it is very very hard to define what truth is, the writer should at least show some efforts he/she have done.
    Writing an article like this one without sampling any comment from Taiwanese blogs, it is not a good idea.
    If Meng cannot access Taiwanese blogs, maybe we should work on this problem.

  • 台灣人

    我覺得把政治、國家制度撇開,用比較平常的是非觀感來看,在WCG做出動手打人的事情就是不對,想想看WCG是什麼正式場合-國際賽事,我想每個素養、理智比較高的人做這種事前都會想清楚,這應該是不對的才是。
    現在WCG都搞這樣,不知北京奧運時還會怎樣。

    內地跟外地差別較大的,應該是在差在民主自由罷了,我想如果彼此都能尊重,要其他人認同是沒問題的。

  • 台灣人

    在新聞中來看,主動打人的我想應該是大陸方才對,因比賽輸了而打人這本來就是沒有運動家的精神,如果不動手打人就叫不愛國,那不就是說以後每場世界奧運有出手的才是愛國者?

    這種將愛國與基本是非搞不清的觀念應該是錯的才對。

  • TRUST

    I admit that I am shallow.

    As today I re-read the article that entitled with “China: …,” I have completely different feeling. This is why I call myself shallow: too easily moved by words and unawarely. I appreciate Oiwan’s changing the name of region from Taiwan to China, which makes the title relevant to the text. In addition, this prevents the misconception like mine yesterday.

    I also thank David and John for your responses. You are both right. Actually, before submitting the comment yesterday, I had thought about the same thing: the important value of GVO that demonstrating all the voices, and respecting the voices. I also believe Meng did as well as to collect the voices from the netizens at the middle stance. But I still submitted the comment yesterday. I try to analyze my action: I felt that the article title with “Taiwan: …” misrepresents the voices in the article. But, my comment failed to point out this; I am sorry for any inconvenience.

    Nevertheless, I do not apologize for some other arguments in the comments! :P Because I do hope freedom and human right can be a daily possession of everyone people living in China. :)

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