After Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's remarks about "intervening in Taiwan" intensified China-Japan relations, the fallout is spilling over into Korea's entertainment industry.
According to Hong Kong daily Sing Tao Daily and Chinese media, Chinese music platform QQ Music posted on its official social media (SNS) account on the 17th that "the Guangzhou fan party (fan meeting) for the Japanese boy band JO1 has been canceled due to force majeure." QQ Music also said that JO1's VIP members-only event, which had been scheduled for the 19th, was canceled.
JO1 is an 11-member boy band that debuted in 2020 through "Produce 101 Japan" season 1 and is under Lapone Entertainment, which was established as a Korea-Japan joint venture by CJ ENM and Yoshimoto Kogyo.
Conversely, in Japan, there was also a boycott targeting a Chinese member belonging to a Korean girl group. After news broke that the girl group aespa would appear on NHK's year-end special program "Kohaku Uta Gassen," a petition was filed to block the appearance of Ningning, aespa's Chinese member.
In 2022, Ningning became embroiled in controversy after posting a photo of a light on her SNS. At the time, Japanese internet users harshly criticized Ningning on the grounds that the light resembled the mushroom cloud that forms immediately after an atomic bomb explosion.
With the current China-Japan conflict as a trigger, the past controversy was brought back up, and a petition was filed with NHK stating that "Ningning's appearance on Kohaku Uta Gassen should be canceled." As of the afternoon of the previous day, more than 50,000 people had agreed to the petition.