HONG KONG - ACTION star Jackie Chan's comments wondering whether Chinese people 'need to be controlled' have drawn sharp rebuke from lawmakers in his native Hong Kong and also in Taiwan.

Chan said at a business forum in the southern Chinese island province Hainan that a free society may not be beneficial for authoritarian mainland China.

'I'm not sure if it's good to have freedom or not,' Chan said on Saturday. 'I'm gradually beginning to feel that we Chinese need to be controlled. If we're not being controlled, we'll just do what we want.' Chan said Saturday.

He went on to say that freedoms in Hong Kong and Taiwan made those societies 'chaotic.' Chan's comments drew applause from a predominantly Chinese audience of business leaders, but did not sit well with lawmakers in Taiwan and his hometown Hong Kong.

'He's insulted the Chinese people. Chinese people aren't pets,' pro-democracy Hong Kong legislator Leung Kwok-hung told The Associated Press. 'Chinese society needs a democratic system to protect human rights and rule of law.'

Another lawmaker, Albert Ho, called the comments 'racist,' saying: 'People around the world are running their own countries. Why can't Chinese do the same?'

Former British colony Hong Kong enjoys Western-style civil liberties and some democratic elections under Chinese rule. Half of its 60-member legislature is elected, with the other half picked by special interest groups. But Hong Kong's leader is chosen by a panel stacked with Beijing loyalists.

In democratically self-ruled Taiwan, which split with mainland China amid civil war in 1949, legislator Huang Wei-che said Chan himself 'has enjoyed freedom and democracy and has reaped the economic benefits of capitalism. But he has yet to grasp the true meaning of freedom and democracy.'

While Chan's comments were reported by the Hong Kong and Taiwanese news outlets, they were ignored by the mainland Chinese press. -- AP