UK-based Malaysian Malaysian comedian Nigel Ng known for his orange polo tee clad alter ego Uncle Roger is facing a backlash from netizens for deleting a video he shot with Mike Chen, an American food personality and critic of the Chinese government, reports 8days.sg.
Mr Ng recently filmed a video with Chen where they reviewed another content producer making what they called the “ugliest dumpling ever”.
There was no mention of politics in the video. Nevertheless, Ng chose to remove the video before posting an apology on Weibo on January 12.
Ng’s decision has led some to accuse him of pandering to China.
Chen is famous for voicing out against the human rights violations in Hong Kong and against the treatment of the Uighur Muslim minority in China.
The YouTuber also called upon his followers to sign petitions to “end the CCP” and has included hashtags such as #CCP_is_terrorist on his Twitter account.
In the statement, he wrote: “It has come to my understanding that this video has made a bad social impact. My staff and I would like to express our sincerest apologies to everyone. Considering the seriousness of this issue and the negative impact of the video itself, we discussed internally and decided to take it down from all platforms (…) During the process of working with the content-creator, I wasn’t aware of his political thoughts and his past incorrect remarks about China. This is my negligence, and I will be more careful when I make content in the future.”
He ended his apology with, “I hope you can give Uncle Roger, who has just entered China, a chance to improve!”
While getting praise from Chinese netizens for “reacting even before he got criticised” some have called for him to upload the apology in video form to prove his sincerity.
On the other hand, followers on Twitter have decried Ng’s actions, with the bulk of them criticising Ng for “bowing to the CCP” and “doing things against his conscience for money”.
Chen has also reacted to the saga, writing: “They will use their soft power to get people to self-censor because they are afraid of losing business in China or offending Chinese people. And I think that’s what happened here. I started my YouTube channel to share my love of Chinese culture with the world, I love China, and I love Chinese people. They are my people. The CCP, however, is not China and certainly should not be equated to the Chinese people.”
Ng has not responded to media’s requests for comment at press time.
The YouTuber, who shot to fame last year after his scathing video review of a British personality’s technique on how to make fried rice went viral, has been churning out plenty of food-related content for his 3.19mil subscribers on YouTube.