Japanese fandom is having a moment in China – and not in a good way

By Joyce Jiang and Simone McCarthy, CNN

Beijing (CNN) — Lily Chen was beyond thrilled to see the Japanese singer she’s been a fan of for two decades, waiting outside with a crowd to enter the Beijing venue on a windy, chilly Wednesday night.

The concert time arrived, but the door stayed shut. Then, the harsh news hit: The concert was canceled.

“It was a huge pity,” the 35-year-old recalled.

The organizer cited “equipment failure” at the venue, but fans suspect it was linked to a major diplomatic row between China and Japan, after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi recently suggested that Tokyo could respond militarily if China moved to take control of Taiwan by force. That’s a “red line” for Beijing, which claims the self-governing democracy as its own.

The concert Chen was meant to attend, which featured J-pop artist Kokia, is apparently not the only Japanese cultural export to be swept up in the frictions.

Performances and fan meet-and-greets from at least 30 Japanese performers, including pop superstar Ayumi Hamasaki, in major Chinese cities have been canceled in recent days, according to a CNN tally based on announcements from organizers.

Hamasaki apologized to fans on Instagram for the last-minute cancellation of her Saturday night show in Shanghai, posting images of herself with her dancers on stage against a backdrop of empty seats. In an earlier Instagram story, she said key staff members had received a request the day before the concert to call it off.

Two organizers of separate concerts told CNN their performances were cancelled after police arrived hours ahead of before showtime and imposed impossible conditions before the show could proceed, or simply called the event off without explanation.

In another particularly dramatic case, Maki Otsuki, the voice behind the theme song of the popular anime “One Piece,” had her performance in Shanghai last Friday “abruptly” halted due to “force majeure,” according to a statement on her official website. Footage circulating online shows Otsuki’s visibly shocked reaction as two staff members remove her microphone mid-song and escort her offstage.

Chinese social media has largely criticized the halting of the concert, with some calling the incident “very rude” and “lacking contractual spirit.” CNN has reached out to the event’s organizer and the venue for comment.

Film importers and distributors had paused the release of several Japanese films in China partly due to the “sentiments of Chinese audiences,” according to China Film News.

“Japan’s provocative remarks will inevitably affect Chinese audiences’ perception of Japanese films,” said the state media outlet.

China has not looked to deny the connection between the ongoing tensions and the entertainment cancellations.

When asked about the recent withdrawal of Japanese movie releases and concerts last Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning didn’t clarify the nature of these restrictions but reaffirmed that Takaichi’s “erroneous” remarks on Taiwan had “deeply hurt the feelings of the Chinese people and worsened the atmosphere for China-Japanese exchanges.”

Takaichi has said her remarks were “hypothetical” and that she would refrain from making similar comments in parliament again.

Growing concern of nationalistic backlash

The wave of cancellations is a worrying sign for millions of Japanese culture enthusiasts in China, where there is a notably strong following for Japanese entertainment among young Chinese.

This year’s Wonder Festival, founded by Japanese toymaker General Products and now one of China’s largest toy and garage kit events, drew over 120,000 visitors to Shanghai for the two-day event in October, with its first-day tickets selling out in just four minutes, according to Chinese state media.

But now, with Beijing insisting Tokyo retract the Taiwan comments and little indication of Takaichi preparing to do so, many are left wondering how much of their entertainment consumption could be impacted as diplomatic tensions spill into art – with no clear end in sight.

“I hope these official policies on restricting Japanese performances are handled rationally … instead of turning our own Chinese ordinary folks into the first victims,” a 37-year-old J-pop fan with tickets to a canceled concert in Shanghai told CNN.

“They should not use public opinion to deliberately stir up blind anti-Japanese sentiment among the Chinese,” said the fan, who requested anonymity for discussing a sensitive issue.

Not all Japanese cultural exports appear to have been targeted.

“Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle,” the latest manga-based Japanese animation, was released in China on November 14, three days before Beijing halted the planned release of other Japanese movies, and hasn’t been pulled out of cinemas. Instead, it’s become the second highest-grossing imported film in mainland China this year, racking up more than 630 million yuan ($89 million), according to China’s major ticketing platform Maoyan.

The strong appetite for Japanese culture among Chinese young people has flourished despite a lingering and pervasive anti-Japanese sentiment. Often fanned by official media in an increasingly nationalistic political environment in recent years, that sentiment is rooted in a painful history of Imperial Japan’s invasion and war atrocities committed in China in the early 20th century.

The most recent anti-Japan protests, sparked in 2012 by outrage over Tokyo’s move to purchase the disputed Senkaku islands, which Beijing calls Diaoyu, saw thousands of protesters take to streets in cities across China and violently target Japanese-owned businesses.

While such massive offline demonstrations may be unlikely in today’s China, given the leadership’s obsession with social stability, online nationalistic vitriol continues to gain momentum amid a barrage of combative propaganda from Chinese state media pointed at Tokyo.

This is now a growing source of anxiety for young fans of Japanese culture in China.

Yui, an 18-year-old fan of Japanese anime and cosplay, was trolled online after writing a post on the Instagram-like app Xiaohongshu, wondering aloud if she can still wear her planned kimono costume for an upcoming anime convention in southern China.

Yui, who didn’t provide her real name given the sensitivity of this topic, ultimately decided to forgo the costume, which cost her some 2,000 yuan ($282), feeling it could be “inappropriate.”

Another cultural ban?

This is not the first time that cultural and entertainment exports have been caught in the crosshairs of Beijing’s diplomatic objectives.

For nearly a decade, Beijing has effectively halted South Korean performances and K-dramas – an unofficial ban to exert economic pressure following Seoul’s deployment of an American anti-ballistic missile system in 2016.

The current situation evolving into something of that scale is a concern for those whose livelihoods are linked to promoting Japanese art in China, like event organizer Koushin Zhao.

After nine months of preparation for a concert in Beijing featuring Japanese singer Yasuko Agawa, Zhao and his team saw their efforts wasted just a day before the show, when local police visited the venue and imposed “extremely strict conditions” that effectively made it impossible to hold the concert as scheduled on November 22, he told CNN.

“I’m also worried about what will happen if this situation continues,” Zhao added.

His Nanjing-based team, which focuses on booking Japanese artists, lost around 10,000 yuan ($1,411) to cancel accommodation and change flights. “If it turns out like what it did for South Korea, where they couldn’t hold performances (in China), it could hinder many of our business operations.”

Uncertain about how far a diplomatic dust-up like this could go, Christian Petersen-Clausen feels his business in China is clouded, too.

The German concert promoter based in Shanghai has already had to scrap six hard-won concerts featuring Japanese musicians amid the bilateral row – the reason, he said, “nobody says openly and clearly, but everybody knows.”

Petersen-Clausen noted the abrupt cancellations could lead to significant financial losses for his startup.

“China and Japan had an issue, and I guess China wanted to show its importance to the Japanese economy and did this. But really, it hurts people like us.”

The-CNN-Wire
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