ED China's hallyu ban is self-defeating

President Lee Jae Myung takes a selfie with Chinese President Xi Jinping and their wives after their summit in Beijing, Monday. Lee used a Xiaomi phone which was a gift from Xi. Yonhap

Governments are not supposed to dictate what citizens eat or which movies and concerts they watch. Any such interference, if institutionalized, would violate the fundamental rights people are born with.

Yet this once-unthinkable intrusion has now surfaced, finding its way onto the agenda of an international summit.

China’s ban on hallyu, or the Korean wave, was discussed during President Lee Jae Myung’s summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. According to the presidential office, however, little progress was made.

Xi was negative about lifting the ban entirely, the office said. He reportedly used metaphors involving “ice and fruit” to signal Beijing’s unwillingness to remove the restrictions for the time being. Thick ice thaws slowly, he said, and ripe fruit falls on its own without external force.

Presidential spokeswoman Kang Yu-jung told reporters that Xi made the remark in response to Lee’s proposal to co-host events such as Go tournaments and football matches, as well as expand cultural exchanges through initiatives like China’s leasing of pandas.

“We took President Xi’s remark to mean that lifting the culture ban would take time and that both sides should make gradual, mutual efforts,” Kang said Tuesday at a press briefing in Shanghai.

China’s stance on the culture ban is deeply contradictory. Officially, Beijing denies that such restrictions exist. Yet Xi’s own remarks during the summit suggest otherwise — and indicate that China has used the ban as leverage to pressure Korea into concessions on issues it considers important.

“China’s official position is that there is no such thing as a ban on Korean culture,” National Security Adviser Wi Sung-lac said Monday at a briefing after the Lee-Xi summit. He added that during the summit, the two leaders even joked that whether the ban existed should not be a topic of discussion.

Reality, however, runs counter to China’s claim.

Since 2016, China has effectively imposed a ban on Korean cultural content following Korea’s deployment of a U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system. Beijing reacted furiously, arguing that the radar could allow the U.S. to peer deep into Chinese airspace. A series of retaliatory measures has since followed, both cultural and economic.

Korean dramas were removed from Chinese television and streaming platforms. Concerts by Korean artists set to take place in China were canceled abruptly. K-pop stars were unable to obtain performance permits. Korean businesses operating in China also suffered, with some forced to shut down.

If China’s denial were true, all of these developments would have had to happen simultaneously — and purely by coincidence. The likelihood of that is vanishingly small.

China’s weaponization of culture is deeply problematic and irrational.

What goods and services people choose to consume is not for governments — or any authority — to dictate. Consumers make their own decisions, and those choices should not be manipulated by the state.

A government-imposed culture ban undermines free will, a basic right inherent to every individual. Chinese consumers are suffering the consequences. Such a repressive measure should be lifted immediately.

During the recent summit, Lee and Xi agreed to promote people-to-people exchanges by co-hosting sporting events. Lee proposed this in hopes that increased interaction would help ease anti-China sentiment, particularly among Korean millennials and Generation Z. The reasoning is clear: Frequent contact fosters mutual understanding and reduces misperceptions.

Cultural exchange facilitates human connection, as demonstrated by the surge in young foreign tourists visiting Korea following the global rise of K-pop.

China’s culture ban is therefore self-contradictory. Beijing claims it wants to improve ties with Seoul, yet it refuses to remove a major obstacle to people-to-people exchanges. Such cultural retaliation harms both countries.

The ban must be lifted immediately.