Daily Pulse

Tension Tampers With Concerts

As tensions escalate between Japan and China over the possession of a group of small, uninhabited islands in the East China Sea, several cultural events scheduled to mark 40 years of renewed diplomatic relations between the two countries have been canceled.

Shinji Tanimura, leader of’70s pop group Alice and one of Japan’s most successful singer-songwriters, officially “postponed” a concert scheduled for Sept. 25 in Beijing. 

 
An official of the National Center for the Performing Arts, the venue where Tanimura was to perform, denied the postponement had anything to do with “sensitive reasons” and was simply due to “normal adjustment of schedules.” 
 
However, according to the state-run Global Times, the postponement was requested by the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, which was hosting the concert. 
 
Moreover, Kyodo News Service reported that Tanimura’s agent called the host and made the request for the postponement. Tanimura has served as a professor at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and regularly performs in China. 
 
He has also held benefit concerts for Chinese causes, including the fight against the SARS virus. 
 
In addition, Japanese actress Nao Suzuki, who graduated from the Central Academy of Drama in Beijing, pulled out of a Chinese play when the nationality of her character was suddenly changed from Japanese to Korean. The play’s producers also wanted to change Suzuki’s name on the cast list to a Chinese name. 
 
Contacted by Global Times, the manager of the theater where the play was to be staged denied making any such requests. 
 
On the other side, Chinese pop singer Sun Nan canceled a concert that was to take place this month in Tokyo, and singer Show Luo from Taiwan, which also claims the disputed islands are its territory, canceled promotional activities, including concerts, for his debut album in Japan only days before the album was released.
 
The cancellation reportedly cost Luo and his management company 10 million Taiwan dollars ($340,000). Other events that have been called off include a joint exhibition of works by Japanese and Chinese cartoonists in Nanjing, the city that was famously plundered by Japanese imperial troops in the late 1930s, and an athletic meet at the Japanese school in Beijing. 
 
The Japanese coastal city of Nagasaki also pulled out of a marine products exhibition in the Chinese city of Fuzhou.
 
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