South Korean Missile Defense Deal Appears to Sour China’s Taste for K-Pop

BEIJING — Has K-pop become one of the first victims of a recent fraying of relations between China and South Korea?
When South Korea angered China last month by agreeing to allow a United States missile-defense system on its soil, there was much speculation that Beijing would retaliate economically. Now signs have emerged that China is targeting some of the South’s most colorful exports: its brand of popular music known as K-pop and its widely popular television shows.
South Korean popular culture is huge in China, which in recent years has become the largest export market for the South Korean entertainment industry. But in the past week, several events in China featuring music and television stars have been called off, and those cancellations have caused jitters in both countries and sent the stock prices of some of South Korea’s top entertainment companies tumbling.
The cancellations may have been coincidental, but several employees at South Korean and Chinese media companies, who requested anonymity because they feared jeopardizing business in the future, expressed worries that there had been official pressure to put some South Korean projects on hold.
A fan event in Beijing with the South Korean stars Kim Woo-bin and Suzy Bae of the television series “Uncontrollably Fond” was postponed last week after the Chinese host, the online streaming company Youku, received a notice from the police bureau in Beijing suggesting that it delay the event, according to a Youku employee.
In a statement posted to its official microblog account on Wednesday, the company announced the postponement of the event, which was scheduled for Saturday, citing “forces beyond our control.

Other cancellations have included two concerts by the popular South Korean boy band EXO that were to be held in Shanghai this month. Those cancellations were confirmed by an employee at the Shanghai-based ticketing website fcpiao.com. Two sources in the Chinese entertainment industry also said some Chinese-Korean television projects had been put on hold.
Kim Hyong-woo, a spokesman for JYP Entertainment, one of the South Korean companies whose share prices have suffered, said it had “nothing to say except that we are watching the situation.” Other agencies offered similar comments mixing caution and anxiety.
Other figures in the South Korean entertainment industry noted that cancellations of events were not unusual in China. And big K-pop stars like Psy and Rain have reported no disruptions in their schedules in the country.
In China, some people in the entertainment industry said companies might be acting pre-emptively to avoid stepping onto what has become a political minefield.
It would not be the first time that Korean entertainers have been the victims of regional tensions.
In 2012, the South Korean president at the time, Lee Myung-bak, visited islets at the center of a territorial dispute with Japan. As anti-South Korea sentiment rose, once wildly popular South Korean TV dramas and boy and girl bands were abruptly banished from Japanese broadcast channels.
South Korean government officials are watching the developments in China closely.
”We are analyzing the situation in various angles over whether this has anything to do with the Thaad deployment, and we will respond accordingly,” said Cho June-hyuck, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry. Thaad is the acronym for Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, the United States antimissile system.
The anxiety in South Korea highlighted the increasingly awkward position that Seoul often finds itself in between China, its largest trade partner, and the United States, its traditional military ally.
Over the decades, South Korea’s export-driven economy has come to depend on trade with China. While South Koreans and their policy makers have welcomed the trade relations as an economic boon, they have also expressed concerns that China might exploit their country’s increasing dependence as political leverage to drive a wedge between Seoul and Washington.
China’s Foreign Ministry did not respond to faxed requests for comment on the K-pop cancellations. But it did respond to news last week that the license of a visa agency serving South Korean businesspeople applying for multi-entry visas to China had been revoked.
In a faxed statement, the ministry wrote that the visa policy had not changed.
“China attaches great importance to facilitating the personnel exchanges between China and South Korea, and will continue to provide convenience for South Korean nationals visiting China,” it said.
The Chinese state news media has stepped up its criticism of South Korea in the last week, publishing a number of commentaries attacking the plans to deploy Thaad.
South Korea insists that the Thaad deployment, in Seongju in southern South Korea, was intended to protect South Korea and American forces in the region from North Korea’s growing missile threats.
But China says the deployment is part of Washington’s plan to bring South Korea into a missile-defense system aimed at undermining Chinese and Russian security.
Some Chinese media outlets have even said a government ban on South Korean entertainers would enjoy widespread support in China.
“A recent survey showed that more than four-fifths of Chinese people would support the ban on the appearance of South Korean entertainers in Chinese TV programs if the government does so,” wrote Xinhua, the state news agency. “It reflects Chinese placing love for their home country before popularity of entertainment stars.”
If South Korea persists in its decision to deploy the antimissile system, the “failure of the Korean Wave in China will be inevitable,” the state-backed Global Times wrote in an editorial published on Thursday.
“Even without official government orders, those embattled South Korean television stations will drown in the spit of online commentators,” the editorial added.
Also last week, the American footwear company K-Swiss became the object of criticism for a video advertisement that showed the South Korean actor Park Bo-gum beating a person named “Great Wall of China” in the board game Go.
After taking the video down, the company said on the microblogging service Weibo, “With regard to matters relating to a recent K-Swiss video, top managers at K-Swiss China are taking urgent steps to review and address the matter.”
“This is pure provocation,” one online user wrote, responding to the statement. “From now on, I will admire only stars respecting China.”
“Get out of China and go eat your kimchi,” wrote another.