Taiwanese rapper Dwagie has received death threats for his new song “XJP Virus”, in which he named the novel coronavirus that has infected over 6.2 million people worldwide after Chinese president Xi Jinping.

One of the death threats, sent to Dwagie online, reads: “If you say ‘wuhan sick’ one more time, I will find someone in Taiwan to shoot you dead!”

Originally entitled “WHO”, Dwagie wrote the song to criticize the World Health Organization for banishing Taiwan, and claimed the organisation was already under Communist China’s control. This made it difficult for Taiwan to share its experiences in fighting COVID-19, he said.

The song’s music video has had more than two million views on YouTube and Dwagie has recently changed the song’s title to “XJP Virus.”

The hip-hop song, mocking China’s cover-up of the plague, was widely applauded by netizens. They praised Dwagie for being a “real rapper” of Taiwan and bringing hip-hop back to its roots. But the song has drawn severe criticism from mainland Chinese netizens, who demanded he apologize and even sent him death threats.

In response to the online death threats, Dwagie jokingly told Apple Daily: “Chinese netizens are quite patriotic. They are trying their best to protect their country.”

He added that facing their mistakes would be the correct thing for Communist China to do. “It is not about stopping people from saying Wuhan virus or Chinese virus,” he said.

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