North Korean pop band cancels Beijing concert, leaves for home

“The Moranbong Band ticks all the boxes of a manufactured girl group”, noted London’s Telegraph.

Band members arrived at Beijing’s airport in North Korean Embassy vehicles on Saturday afternoon, and departed aboard a North Korean Air Koryo jet shortly after 4 p.m. following a lengthy delay, Chinese news website sina.com reported. It would have been the first-ever foreign performance for the band, and one of three concerts scheduled.

China’s foreign ministry on Tuesday remained tightlipped on the reason for the sudden cancellation of a concert in Beijing by an all-female band formed by the North’s leader Kim Jong-un.

While the Chinese media said that North korean pop band cancelled the concert due to “communication issues” and headed home.

The cancellation of a musical performance isn’t a serious long-term setback for China-North Korea relations, but it does symbolize the current state of ties. “Since it would be unimaginable for China to applaud such a thing, Chinese officials probably asked for the song to be dropped, and it’s likely North Korea did not back down”. He suggested strengthening currency circulation as the North Korean banking sector’s primary task.

China’s official Xinhua news agency, citing unidentified “relevant departments”, said the performances “cannot be staged as scheduled due to communication issues at the working level”.

Sun said that if a state leader watched the show it would be interpreted as Beijing tolerating, if not endorsing, North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme, contradicting its official stand.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent a letter to the conference exhorting the delegates to undertake “revolutionary measures for steady development”.

The inquiry’s findings are a dark contrast to the boisterous national front presented by the Moranbong Band, whose hits include With Pride and My Country is the Best!

These invitation-only “friendship performances” were meant to “contribute to deepening friendship and boosting the cultural and artistic exchanges between the peoples of the two countries”, according to CNN reports of North Korea’s state news agency KCNA.

“Facing the economic crisis in 1990s, North Korea’s economic system collapsed”.

While making Kim Jong-un angry is probably not the wisest idea at this particular point in time, China has even begun online censoring of the Moranbong Band.