Chinese officials dropped the bombshell news at a press conference usually reserved for major policy announcements: Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, was scheduled to hold a “listening party” for his new studio album, “Vultures,” on the Chinese island of Hainan on September 15..
For Zitian Du, a 33-year-old office worker in Shanghai, and many other Chinese fans, seeing Ye in China was an unimaginable event, and many were stunned when the strict Communist Party of China allowed one of the world’s most notorious rappers to perform.
“Ye is a total misfit according to China’s conservative social values,” one fan commented on Weibo, the Chinese version of X.
Now some are questioning whether the Communist Party’s controversial decision to allow the artist into the country is driven by a desire for tourism dollars and international recognition.
Hainan Island Goes Global
Ye last performed in China 16 years ago, and this time he’s returning not to Shanghai or Beijing but to a place little known to foreign tourists.
“This is Hainan trying hard to brand itself as an international tourism destination,” said Michael Chou, founder of Jingjiang, a consultancy specializing in China tourism. Mr. Chou said transforming Hainan into an international tourism destination was a key national strategy of the central government.
Still, he said he considered the decision to lure Ye to Hainan a political gamble for the local government.
Some Internet users Even before the event was confirmed, complaints about Ye’s appearance had begun to appear on the Hainan provincial government’s website, with one comment criticising Ye’s work as a “serious deviation from China’s socialist values”.
But with domestic travel stagnating, local governments are desperately searching for new growth points, Zhou said.
Hainan, a tropical island nicknamed “China’s Hawaii,” has long been a top destination for domestic tourists. Last year, the island’s tourism industry generated revenue of 181 billion yuan ($25.5 billion), about 24 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).
But domestic tourists are tightening their travel purse strings, and international travelers are not filling the gap: Foreign tourists accounted for 0.87 percent of the island’s total tourism in the first seven months of 2024, according to the Hainan Provincial Statistics Bureau.
Domestic spending slump
Weakening domestic demand also threatens the island’s ambitious goal of attracting 207 billion yuan in tourism revenue in 2023, up 14 percent.
According to Zhou, most of Hainan’s tourism revenue comes from hotel stays and duty-free shopping.
But a noticeable drop in shoppers could come in 2024, posing a problem for an economy that relies heavily on duty-free revenue. Hainan is home to the world’s largest duty-free shopping mall, and the government plans to turn the entire island into a duty-free hub as early as next year.
According to customs authorities in Haikou, the capital of Hainan province, shopper numbers across the island fell 11% from 2023, while duty-free sales fell 30% in the first seven months of 2024.
The island’s major tourism retailer, CTG Duty Free, reported disappointing first-half results, with sales falling 12.8% from a year earlier to 31.26 billion yuan ($4.4 billion).
“A decline in duty-free sales in Hainan, China’s largest duty-free channel, is inevitable,” said Charlie Chen, head of Asia research at financial institution China Renaissance. He said the decline in shopper numbers and average spend suggests even wealthy customers are curbing their spending.
While luxury shopping is in decline in China, the concert economy has shown a remarkable recovery, a trend that has not escaped the attention of Hainan provincial authorities.
In an official document published in May, the Hainan provincial government promised to offer one-time grants of up to 3 million yuan to companies that bring “world-class music events” to the island.
State media editorials subsequently praised Hainan’s efforts to take advantage of China’s visa-free policy to attract quality music events from overseas. The articles detailed the local government’s efforts to make Hainan a first stop on tours for international artists.
The strategy has worked for the brewers, he says: Ye’s shows are the only reason they go to Hainan.
Ye’s Chinese connection
Like big concerts, Ye’s “listening parties” are often held in front of large audiences, but there’s a difference: In addition to live performances, the events sometimes feature DJs playing pre-recorded mixes and audience sing-alongs. Sometimes Ye and collaborator Ty Dolla Sign don’t rap or dance at all.
Earlier this year, President Trump canceled listening parties in Florida, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Washington, D.C. His planned event in Taiwan on August 25 was also called off just days before it was scheduled to take place, sparking further confusion.
However, on August 23rd in Seoul, South Korea, a listening party went ahead as scheduled, despite starting 70 minutes late.
Ye has spoken fondly about China before, and in a 2020 interview with the New York Post, he defended China during the pandemic and expressed his affection for the country.
“I love China. China has changed my life. It has changed my perspective and given me such a broad perspective. My mom is an English professor and she taught me English in China when I was in fifth grade,” he told the magazine.
Ye faced backlash around the world in 2022 after making anti-Semitic comments, which resulted in the termination of his lucrative partnership with Adidas in October 2022.
CDF Haikou International Duty Free City is one of many duty free malls on China’s Hainan Island.
Luo Yunfei | China Press | Getty Images
But Trump may not face as much backlash in China, where anti-Israel sentiment has grown on social media since the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas.
The German embassy in China has started filtering harsh comments on its Weibo accounts and criticizing users who combine Nazi symbols with the Israeli flag in their profile pictures.
“It seems to me that the party doesn’t care about anti-Semitism,” Du said. “I don’t care about it either, because I’m not Jewish.”
“Their essence is Tibetan,” he said.
Artists who have been vocal supporters of Tibetan independence, including Bjork, Oasis and Bon Jovi, have not visited China on their past tour schedules.
