BLACK PINK has been embroiled in a controversy between Vietnam and China over a disputed map of the South China Sea.
Vietnam's Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism ordered an investigation into the tour organizer's website on May 5th to "confirm suspicions that the organizer of BLACK PINK's tour marked the nine-dashed line," according to Reuters.
BLACKPINK will hold a solo concert in Hanoi, Vietnam on April 29 and 30. Prior to the concert, iME, the concert organizer, posted a poster for the world tour on its website. The poster showed a map of the "disputed line" in the South China Sea, which is claimed by China. Some fans took issue with this, leading to an investigation.
The "nine-dash line" refers to the nine-dash line that China has drawn in a "U-shape" in the South China Sea. China claims that everything inside these lines is its territorial waters, sparking conflicts with neighboring Vietnam, the Philippines, and Malaysia.
There's also been a lot of backlash from people in each country. One Vietnamese fan wrote on social media, "I bought two tickets to the concert, but I quit when I saw the cow tongue (a metaphor for the line). I'm a patriot," one fan posted on social media.
The upcoming Hollywood movie "Barbie" was also banned by the Vietnamese government for showing a map of the nine-dashed line in the movie.
China's nine-dash line covers more than 80 percent of the South China Sea. In 2016, the Permanent Court of International Justice in The Hague ruled that China's claims had no basis in international law, a ruling that Beijing has denied.
Neither I.M.I. nor Blackpink's agency, YG Entertainment, have commented on the matter.