E-commerce giant Alibaba Group and vendors from its platform, Taobao have dismissed reports that K-pop merchandise, including the names of Korean celebrities, will be banned from the platform during the G20 summit as the ties between China and South Korea turned cold, the Global Times reported.
"So far, there has been no notice from Alibaba to remove the names and pictures of Korean pop stars we are using for promotion," a vendor who sells high-end K-pop-style sweaters told the Global Times on Monday, Aug. 15.
The denial came amid claims by some popular Sina Weibo accounts that on the G20 summit in September and on the "Double 11" online shopping festival in November, products related to Korean entertainment, that includes K-pop style clothes, videos, pictures and pop stars' names, will not be allowed to be posted on e-commerce platforms such as Taobao and Tmall.
However, Taobao has denied that it had imposed a ban on Korean products or terms, according to an employee from the public relations department of the Alibaba Group. This was confirmed by several vendors who told Global Times that they did not receive any notice about such action.
A report by ebrun.com said that some social media posts told vendors that they could sell K-pop products provided they take out the pictures of K-pop stars and their names from the promotional materials and with approval of authorities.
However, on Monday, the posts were deleted.
According to the report, the incident is part of the series of reports calling for boycotts to protest the U.S. deployment of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system in South Korea.
In a poll previously conducted by Sina Weibo, more than 300,000 Net users expressed their support to restrict South Korean entertainers' activities in China.
In July, following reports of the THAAD deployment, Chinese netizens reacted by advocating for a boycott of Korean pop stars including boy bands BigBang, EXO, iKon and actors such as Song Joong Ki, Lee Jong Suk and Park Shin Hye as a form of mass protest. Some netizens also unfollowed the Weibo accounts of their favorite Korean artists, the New Paper Online reported.