North Korean pop band cancels concert and sneaks out of China

Members of an all-female North Korean pop music band left Beijing abruptly on Saturday before they were due to perform at a concert, heading back to Pyongyang, Japan’s Kyodo news service reported.

The band’s stage set was dismantled and its concerts were cancelled.

The concerts scheduled for three days through Monday by members of the Moranbong Band and the North’s State Merited Chorus were widely seen as the latest sign of warming relations between the two traditional allies.

A member of the arts centre who answered the phone at the venue said the show had been cancelled due to “some unknown reason”. As reported before, the band has often been referred to as a symbolic step towards North Korean cultural openness.

China has traditionally been North Korea’s sole regional ally and main provider of trade and aid, but ties have become strained in recent years as Pyongyang has pressed ahead with internationally condemned nuclear tests.

Band members arrived at Beijing’s airport in North Korean Embassy vehicles on Saturday afternoon, and departed aboard an Air Koryo jet, Chinese news website sina.com reported.

” could create many new fans outside North Korea”.

Other than the brief Xinhua report, other state-run media organizations, such as the People’s Daily and the Global Times, did not report on the North Korean band’s performance cancellations.

The group’s repertoire in one early performance even included the theme song from Rocky and Frank Sinatra’s My Way.

Although North Korea is well known for its unpredictability, the sudden cancellation of the concerts could hurt relations between Beijing and Pyongyang.

Cheong said that this event won’t degrade North Korea’s relationship with China greatly, but will certainly deepen Chinese decision-makers’ distrust toward North Korea.

Some North Korean watchers speculated that Pyongyang might have canceled the performances because top Chinese leaders, including President Xi Jinping, declined to attend.

In October, Liu Yunshan, the fifth-highest-ranking official in the Chinese Communist Party, visited Pyongyang and met with Kim, the most senior Chinese official to do so.

North Korea has built a cult of personality around the Kim family, which has ruled for three generations, and sees any outside criticism or mockery of its leader as an attack on its sovereignty.