It was belatedly reported that Yue Hua, the Chinese entertainment company managing the girl group EVERGLOW, was punished by the Chinese authorities for holding a consolation performance in the Korean military.

On August 28th, Hong Kong's South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported that the Beijing-based Yue Hua Entertainment company issued a statement the previous day. The agency revealed that the company was being punished by the authorities. The company stated, "We deeply regret and sincerely apologize for the negative impact of the performance conducted by our Korean subsidiary."

The agency did not reveal any details of the incident and did not elaborate any further. However, it was reported that Yue Hua was penalized on May 18th. The issue was the group EVERGLOW appearing on KFN TV, which is a Korean national defense media channel, and was seen performing for the Korean military last year in June.

According to the SCMP, Beijing authorities have recently enacted regulations to punish any 'performance or exhibition that harms the honor of the nation and its people' and require retrospective application up to two years ago.

Violations of this will result in penalties ranging from warnings and fines to suspension or cancellation of participation in foreign cultural activities.

EVERGLOW made its debut in March of last year with one of its members, Yiren, being of Chinese nationality. As the news of Yue Hua's punishment spread, many Chinese netizens criticized the group and company through Weibo, a Chinese social media outlet. The Chinese netizens criticized, "A Chinese person should not perform for another country's military".

Yue Hua Entertainment company has since made an apology and stated, "We stand firmly and unanimously with the motherland and rejects all actions that are harmful to the national interest."

Meanwhile, tensions between South Korea and China were high over the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system.