China’s propaganda machine now orders citizens to believe Ayumi Hamasaki’s empty concert was “just rehearsal footage”
Chinese state media is now telling people inside China that Ayumi Hamasaki’s empty-stadium concert in Shanghai never happened and that all the viral photos were simply “leaked rehearsal clips.”
This rewritten version of reality was pushed directly by China Daily — a site owned and controlled by the Chinese Communist Party and managed by the CCP’s Central Propaganda Department through the State Council Information Office.
China Daily is officially recognized by the U.S. government as CCP-controlled, and this entire narrative perfectly matches Beijing’s propaganda strategy of rewriting events that embarrass the Party.
Their report features a staff videographer who was forced to publicly apologize for “misleading the public” by making people believe Ayumi actually performed to 14,000 empty seats.
Inside China, censors deleted posts and replaced them with the CCP-approved story claiming the concert was “canceled” and that no real performance took place at all.
Meanwhile, Ayumi herself posted the photos on Instagram — in full costume, with dancers, lighting, ribbons, staging, and a completely empty arena — confirming the surreal performance happened exactly as the world saw it.
Globally, her emotional gratitude message spread everywhere; inside China, it was scrubbed and overwritten by a state-mandated script.
The result is an international spectacle where the world sees the truth, while millions inside China are forced to believe a fiction crafted to protect the CCP’s pride.