TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Disney+ has drawn criticism in Taiwan for changing a key character from Taiwanese to Chinese in the TV series "American Born Chinese," prompting the creation of a petition calling for the character's Taiwanese nationality to be restored.

In 2006, Gene Luen Yuan released the graphic novel "American Born Chinese." It soon garnered a number of awards, including the 2007 Michael L. Printz Award and was a New York Times bestseller.

The book centers around a son of immigrants named Jin Wang and his struggles to adjust after moving from San Francisco's Chinatown to a new high school in the suburbs with only one other Asian student.

The book is divided into three stories that tie together at the end, with the first story depicting Yang's version of the Monkey King character, Sun Wukong, in the Journey to the West. In the second story, Sun Wukong sends his son to be Jin's companion and learn how to interact with humans.

The Monkey King's son takes the form of Wei-Chen Sun, a Taiwanese immigrant who has just arrived in the U.S., and becomes close friends with Jin. In the third story, Jin has transformed into a white boy named Danny and the Monkey King comes to earth and poses as Danny's cousin Chin-Kee, who is a racist stereotype of a Chinese person. Later in the story, the three characters reconcile and embrace their true identities.

However, fans of the book recently discovered that the Disney+ TV adaptation of the series changed the origin of Wei-Chen from Taiwanese to Chinese. On Wednesday (March 15), a screenshot of the synopsis for Episode 1 on IMDB was shared on Reddit. The IMDB description states that Jin is "assigned a new student 'shadow' from China named Wei-Chen Sun."

Synopsis of the series shows Wei-Chen originating from China. (IMDB screenshot)

A 31-year-old man named Justin Lai (賴信義) posted a petition on Chang.org with the title: "Stop Erasing Taiwanese in media - keep Wei-Chen's background in Taiwan." Lai pointed out that although Taiwanese and Chinese people share some cultural and historical similarities, there are also substantial differences.

He explained that "Taiwan has its own government, military, and legal system, and many Taiwanese people view themselves as a separate and independent nation from China."

Amid China's increasingly aggressive actions against Taiwan, Lai argued that "it is all the more inappropriate for a story which focuses on one's identity to remove the Taiwanese identity of Wei-Chen for political purposes." Lai asserted that this not only compromises the story's message, but also denies representation for Taiwanese who "struggle to see themselves in all forms of media."

He also referenced a memorable section of the book in which the teacher introduced Wei-Chen by saying that he and his family recently moved "all the way from China!" To which Wei-Chen said "Taiwan," cueing the teacher to exclaim "Taiwan!"

The petition closes by arguing that it is time to stop deleting depictions of Taiwanese characters from popular media to "satisfy the cravings of China, which is doing all it can to remove this identity and the livelihood of the people who have this identity."

Lai told Taiwan News that he moved to Taiwan in 2021 because he likes the country and wants to "have a future here." He said that although he is not Taiwanese, "I am heavily into Taiwanese films/shows as well as Chinese mythology."

When he first heard about the show, he was initially very excited given the talent involved. However, he said that discovering the change in Wei-Chen's background was "disappointing to say the least."

Based on the IMDB page for the show, the actor who plays Wei-Chen, Jim Liu (劉敬), is actually from Taiwan. He is a former Taekwondo champion from Taipei who turned to acting at age 17, before making his debut in 2020 as the lead actor in Limi Band’s music video “One of Two” (二分之一).

Disney+ has yet to respond to a request for comment from Taiwan News.