Seoul-based news agency Yonhap reported North Koreans were insulted when the Chinese government made a decision to send lower-ranking officials to the concerts, which were to be held at Beijing’s National Centre for Performing Arts.
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A member of staff who answered the telephone at the venue said the show had been cancelled for unknown reasons while China’s official Xinhua news agency said the performance could not be staged as scheduled due to “communication issues at the working level”.
The group, Moranbong Band, has about 20 members, all slim young women who wear tight dresses and high heels while performing both Western pop songs and North Korean revolutionary standards.
On Thursday, North Korea’s supreme leader Kim Jong Un claimed that the country has built their own H-bomb.
“The next thing they’ll do is test a nuclear weapon, and go against Xi Dada”, one commentator said on Sina Weibo, a Twitter-like social media platform, using a common nickname for President Xi Jinping.
“The sudden cancellation of the Moranbong Band performance is a show of bad diplomatic manners, and it will worsen ties between China and the North”, said Cho Bong Hyun, a senior researcher in the region. The three Beijing concerts had been advertised as a “friendship tour” between the two nations, and there hasn’t been an official explanation as to why the performances were scrapped.
The concerts were thought to be a good indication of improved relations between the two countries, which are nominally allies but have experienced strained ties ever since Kim took over from his late father in 2011.
North Korea is likely to have canceled a concert in China by its Moranbong Band because China raised issue with the event’s content.
The Moranbong Band, consisting of around 20 members – singers, a drummer and others playing instruments such as synthesizers and electronic violins – has been North Korea’s recent music sensation.
Neither China nor North Korea has given a public statement for the abrupt end of the tour.
Members of the Moranbong Band from North Korea arrive at Beijing International Airport before departing from Beijing on Saturday.
Though there has been no news of concrete changes in North Korea’s rigid financial system, the unexpected conference according to experts, could signal forthcoming reforms.
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Some observers believe that the performances had to be canceled due to the band and chorus being ordered home in connection with this.
