American political commentator and live-streamer Hasan Piker has stirred controversy during his ongoing trip to China, with a viral encounter in Tiananmen Square and remarks that critics say amount to promoting Chinese propaganda.
On Monday, Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for China’s embassy in Washington, shared on X (formerly Twitter) an interview Piker did with state-run China Global Television Network last week, writing: “Real reason why mega #US influencer Hasan Piker is in #China.”
In the interview, Piker, who has 1.6 million followers on X, said he wanted to visit China because “there’s a lot of rumours about China. There’s a lot of misunderstanding, and also just outright lies. And it’s just another normal country like every other country is”.
The 34-year-old self-described socialist added that visiting China was a “dream come true” and that he wanted to see what the US can “adopt and emulate” from the country.
The comments drew backlash. Michael Sobolik, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, criticised Piker on X for “attempting to normalise the Chinese Communist Party.”
“He’s holding it up as something for America to emulate. Disgusting, and un-American. Also, entirely unsurprising,” Sobolik wrote on November 13.
Piker’s activities have fuelled debate over Western influencers in China at a time of heightened geopolitical tensions and weakened people-to-people US-China exchanges, amid disputes over trade and technology.
The controversy escalated when Piker said during a live stream that he didn’t feel “any patriotism” for America, “or any country,” followed by footage showing him confronted by a Chinese police officer, a clip that has since surpassed 5.7 million views on X.
The nearly two-minute video, shared by conservative Australian activist Drew Pavlou, shows Piker and his crew being stopped by a police officer while waiting to watch the daily sunrise flag-raising ceremony in Tiananmen Square. The officer interrupts Piker’s live streaming and asks to review the most recent footage, after which the broadcast abruptly cuts to black before resuming a few minutes later.
Liu He, a researcher at the Hoover Institution, said the video’s real significance was what it illustrated about China’s tightly controlled media environment.
“Foreigners are finally beginning to see a reality the Chinese are intimately familiar with day in, day out, and have long attained a skin-level understanding of,” Liu said on X, referring to online content restrictions.
Piker, meanwhile, has defended his comments and dismissed the criticism in a live streaming on Monday from Chongqing, China, describing the incident with the police officer as a “minor mishap”, saying he had not had a “negative experience” at all in the past eight days, “not even a little bit”.
“It was a two-minute interaction; outside of that it has been spectacular,” he added.
In an earlier video, Piker said the police officer just wanted to make sure that a group of “white boys” were “not making fun” of the ceremony.
Since arriving, Piker has also been posting videos from high-speed trains, sharing insights about Chinese culture and daily life.
The controversy highlights the growing trend of high-profile American influencers visiting China, sparking debate over cultural engagement versus perceived propaganda.
Earlier this year, IShowSpeed, a YouTube sensation from the US, was caught in a similar whirlwind after Chinese government officials and state media hailed his visit as evidence of a growing desire for mutual understanding amid escalating trade frictions.
The 20-year-old influencer, with over 37 million YouTube followers, went viral after live-streaming his visits to Beijing and Shanghai nonstop for six hours across the two major cities. His trip also drew criticism in the US, with many calling it a PR campaign.
But Piker is no stranger to controversy. The New Jersey-born, Turkish-American regularly posts left-leaning commentary on Twitch, where he has 3 million followers, discussing everything from the war in Gaza to video games. His account has been suspended at least four times since 2018, when he started streaming.
In May, Piker was detained by US Customs and Border Protection while arriving in the US after a trip to Paris. He later claimed that the questioning was related to his political views. -- SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
