Japanese singer Maki Otsuki, known for the popular anime "One Piece" theme song, abruptly stopped her live performance in Shanghai. Her management said she "had to abruptly halt her performance due to unavoidable circumstances" even though she was mid-song on Friday. The show was part of the Bandai Namco Festival 2025, planned to run for two days. The entire festival was later cancelled after organisers said they had "comprehensively taken into consideration various factors," according to a post on Chinese social media WeChat and reported by Kyodo News. The diplomatic tensions between China and Japan have hit several cultural events recently. This diplomatic rift began after Japan's Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi suggested the possibility of military intervention if Taiwan was attacked. China claims Taiwan as its territory and strongly reacted, advising its citizens not to travel to Japan and summoning the Japanese ambassador. Other cancelled performers at the Bandai Namco Festival included the popular Japanese girl group Momoiro Clover Z, who were slated to perform Saturday. In addition, pop singer Ayumi Hamasaki and jazz pianist Hiromi Uehara also called off their China shows. After her tour was cancelled just one day before her planned Shanghai performance, Ayumi Hamasaki posted on Instagram, "I still strongly believe that entertainment should be a bridge that connects us, and that I should be the creator of that bridge."