It has generated great publicity for Bon Jovi’s upcoming Asian tour, and a fierce debate between Chinese speakers on both sides of the strait. At the time of writing, the song has enjoyed more than 1.2 million views, 11,462 likes, and over one thousand comments on youtube.

One point of debate has been about Jon Bon Jovi’s Chinese pronunciation, and the consensus seems to be ‘not perfect, but good enough’.

The real bone of contention, however, concerns attribution, and the origin of the song. Bon Jovi’s youtube channel refers to the song as a “中国情歌” – using the simplified Chinese characters used in the communist Peoples Republic of China.

Taiwanese viewers have contested that it is a Taiwanese song, made famous by Taiwanese singer Teresa Teng (鄧麗君), who sang the song in the Mandarin Chinese language. Taiwanese netizens argue that the song should be described as 中文 or 中華, thereby attributing the song to Chinese language, or Chinese culture, but not to the country of China.

In fact, the song was written by Sun Yi (孫儀) with the melody composed by Weng Ching-hsi (翁清溪)and originally performed by Taiwanese singer Chen Fen-lan (陳芬蘭) in 1972.

And here is a playlist of Teresa Teng (鄧麗君) singing in perfect Japanese, just to piss off the 50 centers.