A man has been arrested in Taiwan after a video clip of him abusing a Briton and his Taiwanese girlfriend on the train went viral online.

Christopher Raymond Hall, who asked his girlfriend to film the abuse using his mobile phone, uploaded the clip on his YouTube channel Lucid Dream on Wednesday (Nov 11).

The video, filmed on Oct 15, has been viewed about 1.5 million times.

In the clip, a man wearing a light blue security guard uniform called Hall "horseface" and "trash", asked him to go back to his country. He also called Hall's girlfriend a "whore" for dating a foreigner.

This abuse went on for about eight minutes, with Hall retorting at times.

Hall provided commentary in one of the videos he uploaded, explaining in Mandarin how he and his girlfriend met the man.

He said once they sat down on the train, the man stared at them. When they left the train carriage, he followed them to the next carriage and started insulting them.

At one point, the man said Hall was "dirt poor", and even dared him to take out NT$10,000 (S$434) to prove that he had money.

Hall said he had no need to prove anything to the man, and said to the man he will put the clip on his YouTube channel.

He told the man he will appear on the news, and asked him to say his name on camera, but the man refused.

As Hall was getting off the train, the man appeared to block him.

When Hall said "You want to touch me? Record this", the man backed off and said: "I want to help you off the train."

Hall's angry parting words to man were: "Have a good day."

Hall said in his commentary that he thought he got too emotional during the encounter, and started debating with his abuser.

"I should have just ignored him," he said. "Every time he talked about my girlfriend, I got more emotional and worked up."

He also said that because he felt that he did not handle the situation well, he did not want to post the video online at first.

He passed the footage to the police, but they were unable to agree on which police station should take up the case. Because it happened on the train, it is supposedly under the jurisdiction of the station where they got on the train.

"To date, it has been three weeks. The police are still pushing the case back and forth between each other," he said.

The man, who was not named, was arrested on Nov 12, Taiwanese media reported.

Hall ended his video by saying that he has lived in Taiwan for 10 years, and his friends there were all well-mannered.

He asked viewers not to judge the territory by one person's behaviour as there are "this kind of people" everywhere.

Taipei Times reported that the man, surnamed Liao, was called in for questioning, and may be charged for slander and defamation.

Liao said he had been angry at the foreigner's attitude, which led to his shouting at the couple, adding that he wished to apologise for causing a scene, the Taiwanese paper reported.