David Beckham managed to piss just about everyone off with his new Facebook post
Looks like there's just no winning this time for David Beckham.
The English football star probably lost a bunch of Chinese fans after a post in which he referred to Hong Kong as China.
Beckham posted a video of Hong Kong on Instagram and Facebook, saying he had a "great 48 hours in China" -- something netizens quickly picked up on.
It's a touchy subject for many in Hong Kong, which was handed back to China in 1997 after over a century of British rule. Plenty of Hong Kongers still see the island as largely independent from the mainland.
After some initial backlash, Beckham then tried to rectify the situation by changing his post to say: "Great 48 hours in Shanghai and Hong Kong."
Unfortunately, this provoked anger from a whole other group of netizens, that saw his statement as anti-Chinese.
Beckham was in Hong Kong promoting insurance firm AIA, for which he's now the new global ambassador.
His social media faux pas comes as a new wave of crackdowns on pro-democracy activists sweep Hong Kong. And with the recent election of a new chief executive that is said to be pro-Beijing, many believe that the Chinese government is tightening its grip on Hong Kong -- an issue that has caused increasing tension between the two regions.
Yvette is a Viral Content Reporter at Mashable Asia. She was previously reporting for BBC's Singapore bureau and Channel NewsAsia.
