Starting with aespa Ning Ning, NCT’s Chinese members also got involved in controversies after their Olympics cheering video was posted on Weibo

NCT Xiao Jun and Hendery posted a video cheering for the Beijing Winter Olympics on Weibo. Both are from China and are members of NCT’s Chinese unit WayV.

The official Weibo account run by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) uploaded a cheering message video of Xiao Jun and Hendery on February 9th.

In the video, the two idols said, “We are rooting for all athletes participating in the Beijing Winter Olympics”, and encouraged people to show interest and support the Beijing Winter Olympics.

Along with the video, IOC also added, “Let’s watch the Olympics with Xiao Jun and Hendery. We are cheering for all athletes participating in this Winter Olympics”.

This video received divided responses from Korean fans. Some said the two were only cheering for the Olympics team, but many pointed out that the video was posted amidst an inappropriate time. A lot of people interpreted the video as a supportive message for the Chinese team only as it was uploaded on Weibo, a website that is mostly used by Chinese people.

Since the biased judgments at the Beijing Winter Olympics stimulated the anti-China wave, Chinese idols who are active in Korea are also on fire.

One netizen said, “Since Koreans’ attitudes towards China are bad, Chinese idols’ activities are also negatively affected”, adding, “Although it’s quite unfair for them, there’s nothing they can do because of the wrong timing”.

NCT is not the only group with Chinese members that has been damaged by the anti-China wave. Earlier on February 5th, aespa Ning Ning posted, “Wow, we won the first gold medal tonight. I’m so happy”, on the private message platform “Dear U Bubble” and was harshly criticized by Korean netizens.

In particular, NingNing received greater criticism as controversy over biased judgement arose in the match she celebrated at the time. China’s short track speed skating team finished 4th in the semi-finals of the 2000m short track mixed relay on February 5th, behind Hungary, the U.S., and Russia, but made it to the finals as second-ranked U.S. and third-ranked Russia were disqualified after receiving penalties for “interference.”

Moreover, it was confirmed that players of the Chinese national team did not touch each other during the process. If there is a touch mistake between runners, the preceding runner must run half a lap more and touch the next player. Otherwise, they are usually disqualified as “DNF (Did Not Finished)”.

Various buzzwords such as “no-touch gold medal” and “bluetooth gold medal” have been coined online regarding the situation where China won the gold medal without touching between players.