Japanese concerts in China are getting abruptly canceled as tensions simmer

BEIJING — China’s escalating dispute with Japan reinforces Beijing’s growing economic influence — and penchant for abrupt actions that can create uncertainty for businesses.

Hours before Japanese jazz quintet The Blend was due to perform in Beijing on Thursday, a plainclothesman walked into the DDC music club during a sound check.

Then, “the owner of the live house came to me and said: ‘The police has told me tonight is canceled. No discussion,'” said Christian Petersen-Clausen, a music agent who has organized more than 70 concerts in China over the last 12 months.

“Everything Japanese is canceled now,” he said. He added that he’d spent six months getting Chinese censors’ approval to allow The Blend to perform in the country.

DDC announced Thursday afternoon that the evening’s concert was canceled due to force majeure and that ticket holders would be automatically refunded in the coming days.

Japanese singer-songwriter Kokia’s Wednesday evening concert in Beijing was also canceled, according to the venue. Its public announcement, dated Thursday, blamed technical issues.

Again, there was little advance notice. One social media post from a fan described waiting outside the venue for more than an hour, until well past the time the concert was scheduled to start.

Other concerts by Japanese artists in China have also been canceled or postponed this week.

It appears to be the latest fallout from an escalating spat between China and Japan over Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s Nov. 7 comments indicating Tokyo would support Taiwan if seriously threatened by Beijing’s military. Beijing claims territorial rights to Taiwan, a democratically self-governed island. Taiwan rejects this claim and says that only its people can decide its future.

“The pace and scale of Beijing’s reactions … are quite unprecedented,” said George Chen, partner of The Asia Group, a business policy consultancy based in Washington, D.C. He added that the biggest risk for Japanese brands in China would be a nationwide boycott, although so far there are limited signs that Chinese consumers are avoiding the brands at scale.

Two Chinese ministries late last week started warning citizens against traveling and studying in Japan. China’s Commerce Ministry on Thursday also threatened countermeasures against Japan if it “persisted on the wrong path,” according to a CNBC translation.

Mainland Chinese tourists have been the largest group of foreign visitors to Japan so far this year, and Nomura estimates bilateral tensions could cut the smaller Asian country’s GDP by 0.29%.

No ministry has publicly issued a ban on Japanese concerts, however. CNBC was unable to reach the culture ministry for comment as it was outside of Beijing business hours.

And it’s not just music that is potentially affected, with reports that Beijing will ban imports of all Japanese seafood — something China’s commerce ministry declined to confirm or deny. The foreign ministry has only said that, “under current circumstances, there will be no market for Japanese aquatic products even if they enter China.”

The developments reinforce how top-down policies in China can be abrupt and vague, making it difficult for businesses to plan.

“You don’t have predictability because nobody announces the policies publicly,” music agent Petersen-Clausen said. He said he organized a Japanese concert in Shanghai on Wednesday with no issue, and “nobody has said to us that Saturday[‘s concert] is for sure canceled.”

However, China’s rhetoric remains firm, with the foreign ministry on Thursday calling again for Takaichi to retract her remarks and warning that “if Japan creates trouble on Taiwan, Japan will not get away with it.”

“Basically what that means is, I have no hope for Saturday,” Petersen-Clausen added.

The venue had expected around 200 attendees on Thursday alone, he said, adding that around 20 Chinese people would have gotten paid for related work around both shows. Tickets for the jazz performance were listed at the equivalent of between $40 and $70 each.

The movie industry could also come under pressure. The local release of Japanese animated films featuring Crayon Shinchan and the “Cells at Work” series have been postponed, Chinese state news agency Xinhua said Wednesday. It cast the move as “prudent” based on falling Chinese interest in Japanese films.

“The risk to Beijing is that the perception that it has overreacted reinforces anti-China sentiment in Japan, as it did in South Korea,” Teneo analysts said in a report.

“If Beijing chooses to continue ramping up pressure over the incident, additional measures could include new barriers to imports from Japan justified by trade investigations or product safety concerns.” 

Perhaps surprisingly, international music performances are often the first affected by geopolitical disputes.

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, some venues in the U.S. and U.K. canceled appearances or shows involving artists believed to be supportive of Russian President Vladimir Putin. China has also restricted large-scale Korean pop music performances for nearly a decade to protest a new missile system, although there are indications these acts could return soon.

For Petersen-Clausen, the uncertainty around concerts in China is hurting business.

“Foreign musicians have refused bookings from us because they said we don’t know if it will actually go ahead or be canceled,” he said. “This word has gotten around that China is sometimes unstable. That is a problem for us if we want to foster people-to-people exchanges.” 

“If we don’t get stability and predictability,” he said, ”I’m going to have to disclose a very significant risk that is an unnecessary risk to potential investors.”

Taylor Swift’s $2 billion Eras Tour did not include China, although Mariah Carey and the Black Eyed Peas both performed in the mainland this year. Chinese policymakers have sought to encourage some live events as a way to boost consumption and the overall economy.

But national leaders also have other priorities.

“Along with sports, music and arts are the first things governments ‘rediscover’ as a means to engage or re-engage,” said James Zimmerman, a lawyer in Beijing and former chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China.

“What happened to diplomacy?” he said. “These kinds of debates lead to an erosion of trust, which gets harder and harder to rebuild on both sides. We are seeing that in many bilateral relationships around the world.”

— CNBC’s Hui Jie Lim contributed to this report.