Things haven’t been going all that great lately and sometimes instead of taking the thorny issues head on it’s best to explore other options. The band tends to perform songs in praise of the North Korean regime and wear quasi-military style dress, in fact, the members hold high ranks in the military and are also seen as a part of a military orchestra.
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It noted that the North’s Workers’ Party of Korea plans to hold its first congress since 1980 in May next year. An announcement of the cancelation from the National Theatre, where the band was to perform, was also deleted.
As North Korea prepares for a historic party conference in May of 2016, Kim Jong-un must grasp and resolve the contradiction between his conception of the conditions for North Korea’s survival and his neighbors’ conceptions of the conditions for North Korea’s prosperity.
The Moranbong Band on stage.
Spokesman Hong Lei told the regular foreign ministry news conference he had nothing to add to the Xinhua report and he echoed the sentiment about cultural exchanges and co-operation.
Their songs, almost all of which are paeans to Kim, are played on virtually every flight into and out of the North on its national airline. They sing and dance and play electric guitars, keyboards and drums in a fairly conventional pop ensemble, save for the electric violins.
Chinese analysts who spoke to Yonhap agreed the Moranbong cancellation would have little influence on bilateral relations, but Yang Xiyu, director of the Foreign Ministry’s Korean Peninsula affairs office, said the leaders of China and North Korea still need to meet, and that it is hard to ascertain when that could take place.
But China is mitigating speculation surrounding the recent turn of events. And for good measure, all three concerts were to be by invitation only.
North Korea did not offer an explanation, and the Chinese state-run press cited “communication issues at the working level” for the cancelation. They apparently explained that art and blatant propaganda do not mix.
The “worldwide stylish band”, in the words of KCNA, had travelled to Beijing at an opportune time: the UN Security Council, of which China is a veto-wielding permanent member, is slated to address allegations of North Korea’s human rights abuses.
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Surprised over North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong-Un’s move to abruptly withdraw all women pop band following reported reluctance of top Chinese leaders’ to attend their performances, China today resorted to damage control vowing to step up all round ties with its close ally.
