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Milk Tea Alliance

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The Milk Tea Alliance is a term used to describe an online democratic solidarity movement made up of netizens from Thailand, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. It originally started as a meme and has evolved into a dynamic cross-national protest movement pushing for democracy and human rights in Southeast Asia.

Overview

The Milk Tea Alliance is a term used to describe an online democratic solidarity movement made up of netizens from Thailand, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. The Milk Tea Alliance arose in response to the increased presence of Chinese trolls and nationalist commentators on social media. Milk tea is seen as a symbol of anti-China solidarity by southeast Asians because in many southeast Asian countries tea is historically consumed with milk while in China it is not. Australia has also been suggested to be a member of the Milk Tea Alliance, however the relation to milk tea is tenuous with the milk product Aptamil standing in for an actual variety of milk tea in imagery. Within Thailand support for Hong Kong and Taiwan's stuggle against Chinese encroachment has unified the disparate groups of pro-democracy protesters with anti-Beijing sentiment becoming a part of their anti-authoritarian platform.

History

File:Vachirawit Chiva-aree on 50 Facts about Bright (cropped).png
The Thai actor Bright

The "Milk Tea Alliance" moniker emerged in 2020 after Chinese nationalist Internet commentators criticised the Thai actor Bright for "liking" an image on Twitter which referred to Hong Kong as a "country", and called for a boycott of his TV programme. Bright apologized and took the image down but Chinese netizens discovered a post by his girlfriend from 2017 which insinuated that Taiwan was an indipendent country and the attacks were redoubled. Thai netizens took to social media and defended Bright with their critiscism turning into more generalized critiscism of China. The Chinese embassy posted a long statement on facebook condemning the online critiscism. Twitter users in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the Philippines joined Thai users in what The Telegraph called "a rare moment of regional solidarity". Following the 2020 China–India skirmishes India has also been included in some formulations of the Alliance with masala chai being their representative variety of milk tea.

According to Vice News the Milk Tea Alliance has evolved into a "leaderless protest movement pushing for change across Southeast Asia."

In August 2020 renewed pro-democracy protests in Thailand drew support and solidarty from Taiwanese and Hong Kongers like Joshua Wong. The hastag MilkTeaAlliance was heavily used by protesters.

Reactions

Pallabi Munsi, writing in OZY, described the Milk Tea Alliance taking on 50 Cent Party and Little Pink as "Asia's volunteer army rising against China's internet trolls."

See also

References

  1. Tanakasempipat, Patpicha. "Young Thais join 'Milk Tea Alliance' in online backlash that angers Beijing". mobile.reuters.com. Reuters. Retrieved 18 April 2020.
  2. Bunyavejchewin, Poowin. "Will the 'Milk Tea War' Have a Lasting Impact on China-Thailand Relations?". thediplomat.com. The Diplomat. Retrieved 4 May 2020.
  3. McDevitt, Dan. "'In Milk Tea We Trust': How a Thai-Chinese Meme War Led to a New (Online) Pan-Asia Alliance". thediplomat.com. The Diplomat. Retrieved 18 April 2020.
  4. Lau, Jessie. "Why the Taiwanese are thinking more about their identity". www.newstatesman.com. New Statesman. Retrieved 15 May 2020.
  5. ^ Deol, Taran. "'We conquer, we kill': Taiwan cartoon showing Lord Rama slay Chinese dragon goes viral". theprint.in. The Print. Retrieved 18 June 2020.
  6. Everington, Keoni. "Photo of the Day: Australia joins Milk Tea Alliance with Taiwan". www.taiwannews.com.tw. Taiwan News. Retrieved 30 April 2020.
  7. ^ Chen, Heather. "Milk Tea Alliance: How A Meme Brought Activists From Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Thailand Together". www.vice.com. Retrieved 18 August 2020.
  8. Chan, Christina. "Milk is thicker than blood: An unlikely digital alliance between Thailand, Hong Kong & Taiwan". hongkongfp.com. Hong Kong Free Press. Retrieved 18 August 2020.
  9. Smith, Nicola (3 May 2020). "#MilkTeaAlliance: New Asian youth movement battles Chinese trolls". The Telegraph.
  10. Patpicha, Tanakasempipat; Chow, Yanni. "Pro-Democracy Milk Tea Alliance Brews in Asia". www.usnews.com. US News and World Report. Retrieved 18 August 2020.
  11. Munsi, Pallabi (2020-07-15). "The Asian Volunteer Army Rising Against China's Internet Trolls". OZY. Retrieved 2020-07-30.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
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