Asia News: Acts Skip China; Scalping Arrests In Taiwan; India’s Coldplay Black Market

HONG KONG

K-pop Bypasses China, Heads To Hong Kong Instead

Since 2016, there has been an informal ban on K-pop concerts in mainland China owing to objections by the Chinese government to a U.S. missile defense system being erected in South Korea to ward off a possible attack from North Korea.

China sees the system as a threat to its own security. According to the Kyodo News service, however, Hong Kong, part of China but operated on a semiautonomous basis, gets a pass, and thus has hosted a number of K-pop concerts in the last year. Consequently, K-pop fans on the mainland flock to the city to get their fix.

In early September, for instance, thousands of fans from all over China tried to attend a Hong Kong concert by Super Junior but the city was being threatened by a typhoon.

At the time, one Chinese fan wrote on social media, “Can they come to Shanghai? The last time I saw [them] was when I was still a student, and now I’m working.”

Another replied that while it is still “difficult” to expect their idols to perform on the mainland, there is hope since some K-pop artists have been allowed to hold “autograph-signing events” in China.

Since the expected typhoon was playing havoc with travel options, some fans decided to book earlier flights or spend more time on the train in order to make sure they arrived in time for the show, which started at 8 p.m.

Vendors selling Super Junior merchandise reportedly sold out all their wares well before the concert started.

Hong Kong, in fact, has become dependent on concerts and attendant ancillary spending to prop up its economy, which has become less solvent due to the loss of foreign business in the wake of Beijing’s crackdown on the pro-democracy movement. K-pop events are thus very important to the local government. In the past year, such events have attracted around 1.7 million tourists who have contributed about $920 million to the city’s economy.

TAIWAN

Five Arrested In Scalping Scheme

Police in Taiching arrested five men who used advanced technology to buy tickets for Mandopop king Jay Chou’s sold-out shows for the purpose of reselling them, Focus Taiwan reports.

Chou’s concerts, which will take place in early December, are to be the first ones at the Taipei Dome, and scalpers have been busy taking advantage of the huge demand.

The four concerts sold out in five minutes after going on sale at noon Oct. 25.

The police said they detained five “engineers” who managed to buy 48 tickets and then resold them for prices as high as NT$15,000 ($467) each.

They operated out of an internet cafe in order to evade detection, using adapted bot programs to purchase tickets on different websites.

A special task force, however, anticipated such operations and used data tools to track and observe any suspicious online activity related to ticket purchases.

Focus Taiwan also reports that a married couple in Taipei was arrested for scalping tickets to the same Jay Chou shows. Their case has already been referred to prosecutors.

INDIA

Black Market For Coldplay Tickets Uncovered

India’s Enforcement Directorate announced Oct. 26 that it had conducted raids in the course of its probe into money laundering schemes that uncovered a “black market” for tickets to concerts by Coldplay and local artist Diljit Dosanjh.

According to the Daily Pioneer, the raids took place the day before at 13 locations in five Indian states—Delhi, Maharashtra (which contains Mumbai), Rajasthan, Karnataka and Punjab.

In a statement, the Directorate said, “Searches and investigation conducted by ED has revealed information regarding multiple individuals known for providing such tickets, including fake tickets through social media using Instagram, WhatsApp and Telegram.”

The Directorate confiscated “incriminating” devices such as mobile phones, laptops and SIM cards that had been used in the ticket sales scam. The purpose of the raids was to seek out the illegal sales of tickets and the financial networks that support these schemes. In the end, the Directorate hopes to trace the proceeds from these illegal activities back to their source.