The BLACKPINK concert organizer in Vietnam apologizes for the East Sea map
The organizer of BLACKPINK’s concert in the Vietnamese capital Hanoi has apologized after its website published a map showing China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea, sparking widespread criticism on the internet. social network.
Popular K-pop girl group BLACKPINK is scheduled to hold two concerts in Hanoi at the end of July.
The news that BLACKPINK performs in Hanoi, where famous artists rarely perform is information that makes many people excited.
But earlier this week, iME, a Beijing-based entertainment and events company, posted a map on the homepage of its website with a dashed line that China unilaterally identified.
China has long used this line to demonstrate its claim to most of its territory in the resource-rich and often offensive South China Sea with Vietnam, which claims part of the line. this waterway. Some Facebook and Twitter users called for a boycott of the concerts.
On the Facebook page of the BLACKPINK Vietnam fan group, one user wrote: “To support Vietnam, we’d better not attend the concerts held by iME”. Another said: “This is a worrying issue related to Vietnam’s territorial ownership. As much as I love Blackpink, we should speak up about territorial ownership,” he wrote. Brian Chou, CEO of iME, said this was an unfortunate misunderstanding.
