One of the biggest logistics companies in China announced that it is suspending shipment of all BTS-related merchandise.
According to a report by All Kpop, Yunda Express officially announced through its Weibo account that will no longer accept or process shipments of merchandise related to the Kpop group.
The company did not delve into the specific reason but it merely cited "the reason is what we all know."
There is currently a growing unrest in China after RM's statement about the Korean War during BTS' acceptance of the James Van Fleet Award.
It can be recalled that RM's speech sparked a massive backlash in China after he referred to the shared remembrance of Korean and American soldiers who died during the Korean War.
Chinese fans took issue with this statement and said that RM's speech depicted a one-sided view of history. They accused the BTS rapper of deliberately showing their country in a bad light. During the Korean War, China sided with North Korea and the Soviet Union and also suffered a lot of casualties from the conflict, BBC reported.
As a result, BTS related endorsements and products have been pulled out from the sites of major brands like Samsung and FILA.
Chinese fans of BTS also destroyed the group's merchandise as part of a continued protest against RM's statement about the Korean War.
According to a report by Kpopstarz, Chinese fans trended the hashtag #Leaving_BTS_Fandom on social media sites and posted videos of burning BTS merchandise. Some fans even recorded themselves deleting their BTS-related posts on social media.
While emotions run high in China, BTS is expected to suffer the loss of approximately 800,000 from the pre-order sales of their upcoming album BE.
According to a report by Koreaboo, Chinese Baidu bars for all seven members have started to cancel pre-orders of the album.
Instead of supporting BTS' MAP OF THE SOUL ON:E, 20,000 Chinese netizens also watched an illegally posted stream of the concert on the website Bilibili, China's equivalent to YouTube.
The concert was posted on the site on October 11 and was easily accessed by using the keyword BTS in the search bar. The video contained the entire 2 ½ length of the concert and was viewed by over 20,000 users at the time of its discovery.
Big Hit Entertainment vowed to look into the matter and take appropriate action, a report from All Kpop indicated.
