K-pop girl group aespa has been pulled into the deepening diplomatic dispute between China and Japan as a growing number of Japanese viewers are calling for the removal of Chinese member Ningning from NHK\u2019s year-end music program, \u201cKohaku Uta Gassen.\u201d<\/p>\n
A petition posted on Monday to Change.org is urging broadcaster NHK to cancel aespa\u2019s scheduled appearance. The petition quickly gained momentum, surpassing 70,000 signatures within two days. <\/p>\n
Supporters argue that Ningning\u2019s past social media post \u2014 where she shared a backstage photo featuring a decorative light that some critics said resembled a nuclear mushroom cloud \u2014 shows \u201ca lack of historical awareness.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018Kohaku\u2019 is an important national broadcast,\u201d one commenter wrote, insisting that allowing her to perform would \u201churt the victims of Hiroshima.\u201d Another said, \u201cSomeone who praised a mushroom cloud-shaped light should not appear on a program watched by the whole country.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ningning\u2019s post from 2022 previously sparked criticism in Japan but did not lead to formal complaints. However, this year\u2019s petition comes amid heightened political tension following Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi\u2019s remarks suggesting possible military involvement in a Taiwan conflict. <\/p>\n
Beijing condemned the statement as interference and has since tightened restrictions on Japanese travel, cultural content and entertainment releases.<\/p>\n
Hong Kong\u2019s Sing Tao Daily reported that aespa has become \u201cone of the most visible cultural victims\u201d of the standoff, noting that whether the group ultimately performs could serve as a \u201csignal of the diplomatic atmosphere.\u201d<\/p>\n
This article is translated by generative AI and edited by The Korea Times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"K-pop girl group aespa has been pulled into the deepening diplomatic dispute between China and Japan as a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294909,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[49,48,75,341],"class_list":{"0":"post-294908","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294908\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}