Streaming service iQiyi cancels Taiwanese TV series that portrays 2014 rebellion
TAIPEI: Streaming platform iQiyi has pulled off the Taiwanese television series Days We Stared at the Sun II, with widespread speculations that the second episode had infuriated Beijing.
The second episode was largely based on the Sunflower Movement in 2014, deemed too sensitive to Beijing.
It portrays students protesting against the authorities.
iQiyi said in a statement that they replaced the series with “Lion Dance”, a mini- series about a lion dance troupe in Taiwan, in order to maintain the channel’s distinction from other platforms.
Two other streaming platforms – Line TV and KKTV – are broadcasting the series.
PTS, a Taiwan’s public broadcasting company that produced Days We Stared at the Sun II, said they had sold the broadcasting rights to iQiyi and delivered all of its episodes as scheduled. However, whether or not iQiyi would broadcast them on their platform was beyond their control.
Fan Shih-Ping, professor at the Graduate Institute of Political Science at National Taiwan Normal University, said in an interview with PTS that because the Sunflower Movement had great influence on the 2014 Umbrella Movement as well as the pro-independence movement in Hong Kong, it is extremely sensitive in the eyes of Beijing.
iQiyi, a streaming platform belonging to Baidu, was founded in 2010. In 2015, iQiyi started providing services to Taiwan through its Taiwan website, the first overseas website the platform established.
The Sunflower Movement in March 2014 was a student protest which developed into a mass mobilisation joined by scholars and members of the public.