It's really satisfying to me to hear white westerners speaking Asian languages well, like I am just so used to horrible racist caricatures it's refreshing to see proper fluency.
Maybe the connotations are different in Mandarin, but I feel like "What is a cult?" is not something you have to ask if your new religious movement isn't a cult
That's how I heard it, like saying "what is it that you are describing as a cult?", depending on your reading of it. Like "you're an asshole!" - "who's an asshole?" She went on to try to say there was a cult with the organ harvesting, so I think she was trying to say 'you're the cultist, not us!'