CCTV should apologise for its blackface skit so China can show the world that it, too, knows how to say sorry

Michael Chugani says China demands apologies from others yet never apologises. It should start, as there’s no better way to showcase its rising power than to show it knows it is not always right

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A scene from the CCTV skit, which featured a Chinese actress in blackface and fake giant buttocks. Imagine if a major American TV network aired a show featuring white actors with painted yellow skin, slant eyes and a stereotype Chinese accent. Photo: CCTV via AP

Published: 3:30pm, 21 Feb 2018Updated: 7:12pm, 21 Feb 2018

In America, excited audiences are packing cinemas to watch a black superhero in the film Black Panther, which depicts a fictional African country as the world’s most technologically advanced. In China, state-run China Central Television belittled blacks in its annual Spring Festival Gala variety show featuring a Chinese actress in blackface and fake giant buttocks and a black performer playing a monkey.

CCTV’s racist skit aired on the same day Black Panther broke records on its opening day in the United States. One mocked Africans as backward with fruit baskets on their heads, the other celebrated blackness in a hit film with an all-black cast and a black director.

Imagine if a major American TV network aired a show featuring white actors with painted yellow skin, slant eyes and a stereotype Chinese accent. You can bet there would be deafening outrage from the mainland’s army of netizens demanding an apology.

Blackface skit on TV gala a sign that rising China needs to combat racial and ethnic stereotyping

But CCTV’s skit produced no outrage from mainland netizens. Maybe they laughed themselves so hoarse from the racist segment that they lost their voice. More likely, it’s a simple case of hypocrisy. Censors blocked the posts of the few mainlanders who dared to call out CCTV.

Imagine if the Indian government had released a video mocking Chinese with pigtails

China’s state media produced a similarly racist video during last year’s Doklam border stand-off with India, showing a Chinese actor with a fake beard and Sikh turban and speaking in a mock Indian accent. Again, imagine if the Indian government had released a video mocking Chinese with pigtails and pronouncing fried rice as “flied lice”. Mainland netizens would have responded with fury.

Africans, African-Americans and Indians shrugged off the state media’s racist pokes. They didn’t demand an apology. Maybe they know how to take things in their stride and don’t have a chip on their shoulder. In any case, China never apologises but demands apologies. Delta, Marriott International, Zara and Mercedes-Benz all had to kowtow for unintentionally offending Chinese sensitivities.

CCTV should apologise for its blackface skit so China can show the world that it, too, knows how to say sorry

Michael Chugani says China demands apologies from others yet never apologises. It should start, as there’s no better way to showcase its rising power than to show it knows it is not always right

Blackface skit on TV gala a sign that rising China needs to combat racial and ethnic stereotyping

Marriott ‘independence row’ points to sense of insecurity among Chinese