Popular Japanese singer Ayumi Hamasaki has cancelled a concert in Shanghai scheduled for Saturday evening, following a request to call off the performance.
In a notice posted on Chinese social media on Friday afternoon, the organiser of the concert said that the event had been cancelled due to “force majeure”.
The organiser gave no details but Hamasaki, Japan’s most prolific singer-songwriter, posted on social media that “key staff members were hastily gathered in the morning, and we received a request to call off the performance”.
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She added that the stage, erected over five days by a team of 200 personnel from Japan and China, would be dismantled.
The cancellation comes as Japan and China are embroiled in a diplomatic stand-off over comments Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi made earlier this month about a hypothetical conflict in the Taiwan Strait.
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In her post, Hamasaki wrote: “I have no intention of commenting on matters I have no knowledge of.”
The decision to cancel the concert appeared to be sudden. On Thursday, Hamasaki said in a post that certain costumes and performance elements had been adjusted to pay tribute to the victims of the Hong Kong residential complex fire, suggesting that preparations were continuing.
