Twenty-Somethings in Taiwan and the Country’s First Female President

Last week, Chou Tzuyu, a sixteen-year-old Taiwanese singer famous for being one-ninth of the multinational Korean pop group Twice, released a short video under the orders of her management company, JYP Entertainment. Unlike her usual spritely self, Tzuyu looked as though she’d been taken hostage, reciting an apology prepared by her handlers. Her offense: during an appearance on South Korean TV, she had casually waved a Taiwanese flag. The gesture, coming a week before last Saturday’s presidential election in Taiwan, infuriated sponsors and fans in China, who read it as a show of support for the island’s independence movement. While Taiwan has ruled itself since 1949, China sees it as a renegade province that will one day return to the fold. “There is only one China,” Tzuyu said in the video, which has been viewed more than six million times. “I have always felt proud to be Chinese.”