Promotional material for Thai boys' love drama 2gether: The Series Photo: Maoyan

Two months after being involved in a controversy for "liking" an online photo that listed Hong Kong as a "country", Thai actor Vachirawit Chivaaree, who goes by the name Bright and starred in the popular Thai boy's love drama 2gether: The Series, issued an apology for the incident on Saturday. However, a majority of Chinese netizens have refused to accept the apology, questioning Bright's sincerity.

"He is just trying to redeem himself for the Chinese market and get his fans who can support him back instead of apologizing to Chinese people sincerely," a netizen commented on China's Twitter-like Sina Weibo, representing the voice of many netizens.

Bright posted a nine-minute-long video on his Sina Weibo account on Saturday. 

Explaining, through a translator, why he has waited for two months beforemaking the apology, Bright said that he had been too busy with his work and did not have time to talk with netizens.

"You did not have time to explain and apologize to us, but you had time  playing online games with your friends," commented a number of netizens who did not buy the excuse. 

"I want to know how busy you are so that there was no way you could spare two minutes for a reply," another netizen wrote.

Bright also explained why he liked the scenic photo on Twitter that listed Hong Kong as a "country, " saying that he only saw the picture and did not read the caption clearly. He stressed that he has Chinese blood and has never looked down upon Chinese.

Chinese netizens noted that the actor has not yet replied to the controversies involving his girlfriend Nnevvy, which include retweeting an inappropriate comment about Wuhan and COVID-19.

"I feel that he does not care about his Chinese fans and I cannot see his dedicated attitude trying to promote the boy's love drama. I liked him because of his good looks, but I see his true character now and will never come back," a former fan of Bright who lives in Shanghai surnamed Li told the Global Times on Sunday. She noted that she became a fan of the actor after watching the Thai drama.

Some netizens speculated that the apology was issued because he recently became an advertising spokesperson for a Chinese e-commerce platform. "He is trying to save his image in the Chinese market. His apology is just for the sake of his business interests."

Chinese netizens have expressed their opposition to Nnevvy's retweet about COVID-19 and an Instagram comment separating the island of Taiwan from China by boycotting the drama. Related hashtags for the boycott earned more than 4.64 billion views and over 1.44 million posts on China's Twitter-like Sina Weibo in April.

The hashtag #nnevvy also began trending on Twitter in Thailand and China's Hong Kong Speical Administrative Region, as many Thai netizens, Hong Kong and the Taiwan island separatists joined the online verbal battle. 

"I am disappointed with  the actor and his apology is useless to me. His fuzzy attitude concerning his girlfriend has crossed a line. No idol is more important than my country," another previous fan living in Beijing told the Global Times.

Some netizens have stood with Bright, calling for others to give him another chance, but their voices have been drowned out by the opposition.

Bright's more than 600,000 followers on Sina Weibo have decreased to about 410,000 as of Sunday.