On most years, the biggest worry for a K-pop girl group preparing for Japan’s legendary year-end music show would be simple things: getting the choreography razor-sharp, picking the right song, and making sure every high note lands.
For aespa, this winter feels very different.
Instead of just rehearsing for a dream stage, the group suddenly finds itself in the middle of a diplomatic storm that has nothing to do with its music, its fandom, or even its own choices.
While Japan and China clash over security and Taiwan, aespa has become an unlikely casualty of a much bigger geopolitical confrontation — a reminder of how fragile the line is between pop culture and politics in Northeast Asia.
A dream stage turns into a battlefield
aespa was announced as part of the lineup for NHK’s “Kōhaku Uta Gassen”, the year-end music extravaganza aired every December 31. For Japanese viewers, Kōhaku is more than just a TV show; it’s a national ritual that marks the close of the year. For artists, especially foreign acts, being invited to Kōhaku is a powerful symbol of mainstream acceptance.
But the celebration mood didn’t last long.
On November 14, NHK revealed the performer list for the 76th Kōhaku Uta Gassen. Just two days later, on November 16, a petition appeared on Change.org under the title:
“We demand the cancellation of aespa’s appearance on Kōhaku.”
Within just three days, the petition had collected more than 41,000 signatures from Japanese users. The target of the backlash was not aespa’s music, visuals, or stage concept — but an old social media post by one member, and the way it collided with Japan’s deepest historical trauma.
As of the time referred to in the draft, both NHK and aespa’s agency SM Entertainment had not released an official statement. The group is effectively standing in a spotlight they never asked for, with their year-end schedule now hostage to forces far beyond K-pop.
Ningning’s “mushroom cloud” lamp resurfaces
At the center of this controversy is Ningning, aespa’s Chinese member.
Back in 2022, Ningning posted a photo on Bubble, a paid fan communication app. In the image, she proudly showed off a new lamp in her room — a light shaped like a mushroom cloud. She reportedly captioned it with something along the lines of, “I bought a cute lamp, what do you think?”
At the time, it seemed like just another quirky idol room update: harmless, aesthetic, vaguely retro.
But in October this year, a Japanese netizen dug up the image and reframed it in a very different context. The lamp, the petition claims, is modeled after an atomic bomb explosion, a decorative reproduction of the instant in which tens of thousands of civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were killed in 1945.
Petition organizers argue that:
- The lamp is a “nuclear bomb model light”,
- It “recreates the moment 110,000 people were instantly killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” and
- Ningning’s description of it as “cute” shows a lack of historical awareness and a “light-hearted attitude toward a profound tragedy.”
In other words, what had been a niche decor item inside a K-pop idol’s bedroom is now being read, in Japan’s highly sensitive context, as a symbol of disrespect toward victims of the atomic bombings.
For aespa and their Japanese fans, this has created a painful split: to some, Ningning’s post was simply thoughtless; to others, the outrage feels like a politically motivated overreach triggered at a convenient time.
A K-pop group in the crossfire of a China–Japan diplomatic clash
The timing of this flare-up is not a coincidence. It is happening just as China–Japan relations have been pushed to one of their tensest points in years, largely over the issue of Taiwan.
The immediate spark was a statement by Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae on November 7 in Japan’s lower house of parliament. She suggested that a Taiwan contingency — a military crisis involving the island — could qualify as a “situation threatening Japan’s survival,” opening the door for Japan to exercise collective self-defense and use military force.
For Beijing, this was intolerable. It was the first time a sitting Japanese prime minister openly suggested potential military involvement in a Taiwan crisis, and China reacted with full diplomatic force:
A spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Lin Jian, condemned the remark as “openly provocative,” urging Japan to “correct its mistake immediately and retract this vile statement.”
Lin warned that if Japan were to “recklessly interfere militarily” in the Taiwan Strait situation, Beijing would treat it as an act of aggression and respond with severe countermeasures.
The rhetoric escalated even further at the consular level.
The Chinese Consul General in Osaka, Xue Zhen, posted a shocking message on X (formerly Twitter), in Japanese, aimed at Japan’s leadership:
“That filthy neck meddling without permission can only be cut cleanly without a moment’s hesitation. Are you prepared for that?”
The post was later deleted, but the damage was done. Tokyo lodged an official protest, calling the statement “completely inappropriate” for a Chinese diplomat.
Meanwhile, Beijing began to match its words with actions:
- China issued a travel advisory, effectively urging its citizens to avoid visiting Japan, citing the diplomatic tensions.
- Major Chinese airlines offered free ticket changes or cancellations for Japan-bound flights.
- As a form of economic pressure, imports of Japanese seafood were once again restricted, invoking safety and political concerns.
This is the climate in which aespa’s controversy suddenly exploded. The group has unintentionally become part of a narrative where every symbol — from seafood to song choices to bedroom lamps — is scanned for political meaning.
When pop culture becomes a proxy battlefield
For aespa, the story is not just about one member’s room decor; it’s about how K-pop, as a cross-border cultural product, is vulnerable to the fault lines of East Asian geopolitics.
In calmer times, K-pop idols with multinational members are celebrated as bridges between cultures. Chinese members help expand a group’s popularity in the Chinese-speaking world, while Japanese members connect deeply with Japanese fans. This formula has worked for years, powering the rise of many top idol groups.
But when diplomatic tensions flare, those same multinational lineups can become targets.
In this case:
- Japanese nationalists can frame Ningning’s lamp as evidence of Chinese insensitivity toward Japanese wartime suffering.
- Chinese nationalists may react defensively to any criticism of a Chinese idol, seeing it as an attack on China itself.
- Korean fans, caught in the middle, watch their favorite group dragged into a historical dispute that predates the members’ births.
A simple year-end music booking has thus turned into a test of how far historical memory, nationalism, and pop culture can collide in a hyper-connected era.
All of this unfolds while NHK remains silent, weighing the potential backlash from both sides against the cultural significance of Kōhaku and its increasingly international audience. For aespa, every hour of that silence extends the uncertainty: Do they prepare for the stage? Do they brace for cancellation? Do they apologize, explain, or wait?
The “wrong place, wrong time” cost of being global
No matter how this particular controversy ends — whether aespa appears on Kōhaku as planned, is quietly dropped, or issues some form of clarification — the case highlights a harsh truth for global K-pop acts:
Being everywhere also means being exposed to every country’s unresolved wounds. A room lamp bought because it looks “cool” or “cute” might be nothing more than a design object in Seoul or Beijing, but in Japan it can trigger memories of nuclear fire and civilian deaths. A sentence in parliament about Taiwan can shake airline bookings, seafood exports, and now even the year-end plans of a Korean girl group.
aespa did not start the China–Japan diplomatic confrontation. They did not choose the words spoken in Tokyo’s parliament or Beijing’s foreign ministry briefing room. Yet right now, they sit at the intersection of all of it — a K-pop group turned symbolic collateral in a conflict that has nothing to do with them.
For fans, it’s heartbreaking. For the industry, it’s a warning.
In an age where politics, history, and fandom are all amplified in real time, K-pop’s global success does not just mean bigger stages and more streams. It also means that, at any moment, an idol can be pulled into a fight they never picked, in a war of narratives that was never theirs to begin with.