Pop star Lady Gaga’s chat on Sunday with the Dalai Lama may prompt Chinese authorities to cancel her upcoming concerts in the communist country, the Hollywood Reporter said on Tuesday.
“The 20-minute meeting, which took place after the Tibetan spiritual leader’s appearance at the 84th annual Conference of Mayors in Indianapolis, was live-streamed on Facebook and liked some 160,000 times,” the Hollywood Reporter explained Tuesday. “Once photos of the occasion made their way to mainland China, however, the response was far less enthusiastic.”
While “[t]he Dalai Lama’s name in Chinese is often blocked on social media service Weibo, it appears that authorities have been giving users some space to express their pro-Beijing umbrage towards the U.S. pop star,” the entertainment news site explained.
Subsequent to the Hollywood Reporter’s story, Quartz.com reported on Tuesday morning that the Chinese government is at work trying to scrub Lady Gaga’s chat with the Buddhist spiritual leader from websites it controls.
“[Media outlets] must resolutely struggle against Tibetan independence, and closely follow reports from CCTV, the Global Times, People’s Daily, and other reports and commentary from central media outlets,” Quartz quoted from the Chinese-language site Apple Daily, which itself was citing a government document.
Thus far, it seems the Chinese government hasn’t gone as far as it could with its attack on Lady Gaga.
“State media publications have not written angry commentary on the meeting, or even reported on it at all,” Quartz reported. What’s more, “A search on QQ Music, one of China’s most popular music streaming sites, shows there’s still plenty of Lady Gaga music available.”
That said, “[s]everal Western musicians have had their concerts canceled in China because of past associations with the Dalai Lama,” according to the Hollywood Reporter, which cited pop star Selena Gomez and rock groups Bon Jovi and Maroon 5 as three such examples.
• Ken Shepherd can be reached at kshepherd@washingtontimes.com.
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