Korean boy band BTS has been nominated for the American Music Awards for the third year in a row. Their YouTube music videos are breaking all records and their management Big Hit Entertainment can even be found on the Seoul stock exchange recently. BTS enjoys enormous popularity worldwide, including in China. But some statements of the boy band have gone down the wrong way with their Chinese fans.
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The controversy arose around the 70th anniversary of the Korean War. That war is interpreted differently by different parties. Earlier this month, BTS received the James Van Fleet Award, an award presented annually to Koreans or Americans who are committed to the good relationship between the US and South Korea.
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At the ceremony, frontman RM said South Korea and the US share a ‘history of pain’ in the years 1950-1953. This statement angered many Chinese fans on social media, as RM did not mention the perspective of China (which North Korea supported) at all. About 200,000 Korean soldiers died in the conflict, as well as 36,000 Americans. According to Chinese state media, 180,000 Chinese soldiers lost their lives during the war.
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Hundreds of thousands of troops
A week later, while visiting an exhibition commemorating China’s involvement in the Korean War, President Xi Jinping of China added fuel to the fire. He called the war a fight against “imperialist invaders.” The US State Department responded in plain language by saying that it is a fact that on June 25, 1950, North Korea invaded South Korea with help from Mao. “When the free world then fought back, the Chinese Communist Party sent hundreds of thousands of troops, guaranteeing the destruction of the Korean peninsula.” The ministry spokeswoman even thanked BTS in a tweet for their statements during the Van Fleet presentation.
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Several experts see Xi’s words in the context of an increasingly self-confident China on the world stage. Woo Su-keun of Concordia International University says Xi implies the era of American world domination is over. His statement is directly addressed to their own people and should evoke a sense of ‘red patriotism’. Seoul is not yet responding directly to the statements from both Beijing and Washington. According to observers, Seoul is doing this to ensure security in Northeast Asia.
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