Kanye West performs in China after rare approval by country’s censors

Flow of foreign artists to China has slowed to a trickle, but economic pressures could be forcing authorities to rethink

heavily on the tourism and entertainment industries, appear increasingly frustrated by missing out on big international tours. In July, government advisers in Shanghai said they wished they could bring in the “walking GDP” of artists such as Swift more easily.

“This is the largest and highest-grossing personal concert tour in history, having generated over US$5bn in consumer spending so far” the advisers’ article, published on the Shanghai municipal government’s WeChat account, said, referring to Swift’s Eras tour.

Ye had been scheduled to perform in Taiwan, but less than a month ago organisers announced the show had been cancelled because of “unforeseen circumstances”. It was not clear if those circumstances were related to the apparently last-minute approval to play in China, where the government claims Taiwan as a province and strongly objects to any act that legitimises its sovereignty.

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