China To Reportedly Lift The Ban On Korean Content

China will likely lift its ban on Hallyu (Korean pop culture) soon!

The ban on K-wave in China was imposed in 2017 in retaliation after Korea deployed the THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense), a US missile defense system. Though the government never officially acknowledged this ban, the distribution of Korean content within the country has been effectively restricted for the past eight years. Any export of Korean cultural products to China currently requires approval from Chinese authorities, and it has been said that requests often get denied without clear reasons.

However, due to a sudden change in diplomatic strategies, China has stated that it wants to “expand cultural exchanges” with South Korea and “fully resume cultural cooperation as early as May.” This move will likely end the restrictions on South Korean content in the country, including dramas, movies, games, and K-Pop concerts.

According to the estimates by the KDB Future Strategy Research Institute, an affiliate of the state-run Korea Development Bank, China’s ban on Korean content caused losses of up to ₩22.0 trillion KRW (about $15.3 billion USD) to related Korean industries in 2017 alone.

China’s overall diplomacy toward South Korea is also seeing a quick shift. Last year, China included Korea in its visa-free entry list for the first time since 1992. In a reciprocated move, Seoul’s Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism is considering temporary visa exemptions for Chinese group tourists coming to Korea.

During his meeting with Korean National Assembly speaker Woo Won Shik on February 7, President Xi Jinping remarked, “Cultural exchanges are a valuable part of our bilateral relations. We should avoid any problems occurring in handling such matters.” According to analysts, the move to lift the ban on Korean content also displayed that the country didn’t perceive the K-wave as a major threat to its own content industry anymore.