BEIJING, May 12 (The Straits Times/ANN): China’s Ministry of Public Security has come under fire for posting an online video featuring people in brownface singing a South Asian song.
Brownface – like blackface – involves people painting their faces darker and is seen as a racist caricature.
According to reports in the BBC and South China Morning Post (SCMP), the video was meant to promote road safety.
It was posted on the ministry’s official Weibo account last weekend.
The video features a popular influencer and two other men in brownface wearing turbans, and several women dressed in South or Central Asian costumes.
The ministry’s video upload included a post that said: “Police reminder: Seat belts should also be worn in the rear seats. Remember when riding a motorcycle, you can’t go on the road without a helmet!”
The video drew hundreds of shares and was largely well-received in China.
One Weibo user described the video as “magical”.
Some said the song from the late 1990s, Tunak Tunak Tun, was hugely popular in China and is an example of “Indian soft power”.
However, sentiments were different in India. One journalist tweeted that the video mocks “India, Bollywood and Indians”.
Even within China, some commenters had warned the video would spark backlash.
“They won’t find it humorous,” one user said, referring to Indians.
The video seems to have been taken down from the public security ministry’s Weibo account.
It is not immediately clear who was responsible for the video.
According to SCMP, the ministry is said to have picked it up from Bilibili, a Shanghai-based video sharing website.
This is not the first time China has sparked such outrage.
In 2018, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV featured a Chinese actress who appeared in blackface for a Chinese New Year gala. - The Straits Times/ANN
