[News] SMAP Serenades Chinese Premier in Tokyo.

[News] SMAP Serenades Chinese Premier in Tokyo.
By Owen Fletcher@japanrealtime
Photo Cr. - daylife


It was an unlikely and slightly surreal match during an otherwise somber trilateral summit in Japan: Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao met aging Japanese boy-band SMAP and asked them to sing him a tune during a visit to Japan, adding resonance to his calls for harmony between the two countries.

The meeting, which highlighted Mr. Wen’s efforts to maintain an avuncular public image, could also prelude better fortunes in China for SMAP, whose plans for a debut concert in the country last year were blocked–twice.

Mr. Wen, accompanied by China’s commerce minister and the head of its economic planning agency, told the band on Saturday they are welcome to come to China and inadvertently leaked news that they have new plans for a concert there.

“I hope you bring with you seeds of China-Japan friendship that take deep root and blossom in China,” Mr. Wen, who is 68 years old, told the four of the band’s five members who were present. “I am old and I haven’t heard your songs. I hope you could sing for me.”



SMAP responded by launching into a rendition of their popular song “The Only Flower In The World” and posing for a photo with Mr. Wen.

Mr. Wen, in Japan for a summit with Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, repeatedly called during his trip for more friendly relations and cooperation between the countries. On Sunday, the three leaders pledged further cooperation in nuclear safety and disaster preparedness, a move prompted by the nuclear crisis in Japan has faced since a powerful earthquake and tsunami struck the country in March.

SMAP has been an unwitting victim of China-Japan diplomatic spats before. Relations between the two countries soured last year after the collision of a Chinese fishing boat with two Japanese coast-guard vessels in disputed waters. Among China’s responses to the incident was a suspension in September of ticket sales for SMAP’s debut performance in Shanghai. The concert didn’t go through.

Earlier, SMAP was scheduled to perform at the Shanghai World Expo in June, but organizers canceled the event citing security concerns.

SMAP’s members are the titans of Japan’s entertainment industry. They have performed for about two decades, releasing their first group album in 1991, and they appear regularly in TV dramas and on Japan’s colorful variety programs.



Mr. Wen is far from publicity-shy himself. While in Japan, he also distributed daily necessities and toys in an area of northeast Japan devastated by the March tsunami. (Mr. Wen, Mr. Kan and Mr. Lee also took some time out in Fukushima to eat local farm produce, aiming to smooth over public concerns about radiation contamination in Japanese food amid the country’s nuclear troubles.)

Mr. Wen also showed off a softer side on a visit to Japan last year, when he played baseball, did early-morning taichi and ran in a park.

SMAP’s newest China concert date is set for Sept. 16 in Beijing — if China doesn’t nix the performance again. Wen’s smiling greeting to the band portends well, but unexpected flare-ups in flashpoint issues like territorial disputes between China and Japan always have the potential to reverse talk of friendly relations. SMAP fans shouldn’t fret yet, but Chinese authorities could still change their key.