Los Angeles band Maroon 5 may have become the latest international musicians to be barred from China, with online speculation blaming one band member’s support for the Dalai Lama.
The group had been scheduled to perform in Beijing and Shanghai in September as part of an Asian tour but those shows were scrapped earlier this week.
No official explanation has been given with a statement from Live Nation, the band’s promoter, alluding only to an unspecified “reason”.
The cancellations sparked speculation that a tweet sent by Jesse Carmichael, the group’s keyboard player, was responsible.
In the message, posted on July 4, Carmichael sent birthday wishes to the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama. The musician reportedly attended a party celebrating the Buddhist leader’s 80th birthday in the United States.
The tweet, since deleted, linked to a photograph on Instagram that was also later removed.
This week, the Beijing edition of Time Out reported: “We hear musings about Maroon 5 being prevented from performing by our political friends up above.”
Meeting the Dalai Lama “is all an artist needs to get a big X on their visa application,” the magazine added.
The Dalai Lama, who has lived in exile since 1959 and received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, is revered around the world. But China’s Communist party leaders accuse him of being an independence-seeking “splittist” and a “wolf in sheep’s clothing”.
Beijing has punished politicians, including David Cameron, who have met with the Tibetan Nobel laureate by imposing lengthy diplomatic freezes.
As word of the Maroon 5 cancellations spread, Chinese social media sites filled with comments — some apparently posted by state-sponsored internet stooges — attacking the band.
One user of Weibo, China’s Twitter, wrote: “They’ve nobody to blame but themselves. Anyone who supports Tibetan separatists deserves to be blacklisted. He has dragged his whole band down.”
Another commented: “It is better they never set foot in China. Foreigners have no right to meddle our own internal affairs.”
“Of course we can’t let him in to make money out of our country. It concerns the basic dignity of a country,” added a third.
Chinese authorities have made no official pronouncement about the band’s aborted trip but Maroon 5 would not be the first musicians to fall foul of Beijing’s sensitivities over Tibet.
Icelandic singer Bjork incurred the government’s wrath after calling for Tibet’s independence during a 2008 show in Shanghai.
Oasis were forced to cancel shows in China the following year, supposedly because front-man Noel Gallagher had performed at a Free Tibet concert in New York.
Sir Elton John was reportedly interviewed by Chinese police after dedicating a 2012 concert in Beijing “to the spirit and talent of Ai Weiwei”, the dissident artist.
An intensifying political crackdown being waged by president Xi Jinping has already been blamed for the cancellation of a series of events and concerts in Beijing this year.
