Resident dissident: China’s censors are letting Ye perform there. His fans are amazed

By Vivian Wang

NEW YORK: When the news broke that Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, would be performing in China on Sunday, the elation of many of his fans was mixed with another emotion: confusion. Why would the notoriously prickly Chinese government let in the notoriously provocative Ye? Why was the listening party, as Ye calls his shows, taking place not in Beijing or Shanghai, but in Hainan, an obscure island province?

Under a trending hashtag on the social media site Weibo on the subject, one popular comment read simply, “How?” alongside an exploding-head emoji. The answer may lie in China’s struggling economy. Since China reopened its borders after three years of coronavirus lockdowns, the government has been trying to stimulate consumer spending and promote tourism.

“Vigorously introducing new types of performances desired by young people, and concerts from international singers with super internet traffic, is the outline for future high-quality development,” the government of Haikou, the city hosting the listening party, posted on its website. But it is unclear whether the appearance by Ye — who would be perhaps the highest-profile Western artist to perform in mainland China since the pandemic — is part of a broader loosening or an exception.

Even before the pandemic, the number of big-name foreign entertainers visiting China had been falling as authorities tightened controls on speech. Acts such as Bon Jovi and Maroon 5 had shows abruptly cancelled, leading to speculation that band members’ expressions of support for causes like Tibetan independence were to blame. Justin Bieber was barred from China in 2017 over what the Beijing city government, without specifying, called “bad behaviour.”

Ye might have seemed like a no-go, too. Chinese authorities declared war on hip-hop in 2018, with the state news media saying that artists who insulted women and promoted drug use “don’t deserve a stage.” But in Ye’s case, objections to hip-hop may have been outweighed by the potential payoff — especially for Hainan.

For years, the Chinese government has sought to turn Hainan, an island roughly the size of Maryland or Belgium, into an international commercial hub. It offers visa-free entry and duty-free shopping, and has pledged to attract more world-class cultural events. Sheng Zou, a media scholar at Hong Kong Baptist University, said enforcement of censorship was capricious. “When it comes to Ye, I guess his celebrity status may outweigh his identity as a hip-hop artist.”

For Ricardo Shi, 25, an employee of a tech company in Shenzhen, the chance to see Ye was worth spending $700 on plane tickets for a two-day trip to Haikou. “It’s been so long since he last came to China,” he said. (Ye performed in Beijing and Shanghai in 2008.) “It’s a rare opportunity to be there in person.”

Ye, who is touring to promote “Vultures,” his new album series with singer Ty Dolla Sign, has praised China. He told Forbes in 2020 that the country “changed my life.” He lived in the city of Nanjing as a fifth grader, when his mother was teaching English there. And issues that have led Western brands to cut off collaborations with Ye and alienated many American fans, like his antisemitic and homophobic comments, are of less concern to Chinese officials.

Still, no artist can escape political scrutiny altogether. A photo circulating on Chinese social media showed officials gathered around a conference table, before a screen that read, “Haikou Municipal Bureau of Tourism, Culture, Radio, Television and Sports ‘Kanye West World Tour Audiovisual Concert’ Risk Assessment Meeting.” Reached by telephone, an employee at the bureau could not confirm the photo’s authenticity but said that similar meetings were routine before large-scale events.

“These things, in my opinion, are a kind of test,” the employee, who gave her surname, Wang, said of the Ye event. “In the future, there will be more foreigners coming to Hainan for similar concerts. As long as they provide positive energy, we’ll do it.”

No one has announced what songs Ye will play. Set-lists must be pre-approved by censors.

A week before officials announced Ye’s Hainan stop, a listening party planned for Taiwan was abruptly canceled. The Taiwan organizers cited “unforeseen circumstances.” It is unclear whether the cancellation was related to Ye’s show in China, which claims sovereignty over Taiwan. A publicist who has worked with Ye on past listening parties did not respond to a request for comment.

Even after Ye passed the Chinese censors, some complained that he should not have. A string of submissions to Haikou’s public complaints website objected to his lyrics and personal behavior, with one user declaring them “inconsistent with our country’s cultural and social values.”

Some Ye supporters suggested that those complaints were from disgruntled Taylor Swift fans. Swift, with whom Ye has a long and well-documented feud, has yet to announce any China dates for her Eras tour. (Several Shanghai government advisers recently called on the city to loosen its concert approval processes, citing performers like Swift, who they said were like “walking GDP.”) The anti-Ye comments have since disappeared from the government website.