Lee Soo-man returns with A2O LITE... Online criticism over "China market is important" remarks

Former SM Entertainment chief producer Lee Soo-man has returned to the K-pop market after 2 years and 9 months with the rookie girl group A2O LITE. A2O LITE is a nine-member girl group consisting of 3 Koreans, 3 Chinese, 1 Japanese, 1 Thai, and 1 dual citizen of the United States and Japan. The group has been gaining attention by topping major music charts immediately after releasing their debut single ″Neon″ on the 13th. Recently, Lee Soo-man’s past remarks related to China have resurfaced on online communities and social media. A video of Lee Soo-man giving an interview with the choreography video of A2O LITE members playing in the background went viral. In the video, Lee Soo-man said, ″China currently has a population of 1.3 billion. There is no market like this in the world,″ emphasizing the scale of the Chinese market. He continued, ″Producers should go directly to that country (China), teach them, and work together with local talents to make it their own.″ He also stated, ″We need to create a new, more crossover-type emergence and make China the Hollywood of Asia.″ This video is a recent re-edit of Lee Soo-man’s response to economic expert Kim Dong-han’s questions on the 2021 tvN program ″Monthly Connect.″ At that time, Lee Soo-man explained that after HOT’s success, he recognized the need to export content and devised a localization strategy by casting and nurturing members from overseas, including China and Japan. Regarding the globalization of K-pop, he said, ″I thought the entertainment market in our country alone could not become an industry. So, from an industrial perspective, I thought we needed to have a system like a factory.″ Some netizens who saw Lee Soo-man’s remarks responded critically, saying things like, ″How is this different from industrial espionage?″, ″Why should we do good things for others?″, and ″Why are we working for China with our technology?″ There were also opinions criticizing the past controversies over contract renewals of Chinese members. When asked by the host at the time, ″Some say there is a prospect and prediction that China’s doors will open again soon,″ Lee Soo-man replied, ″If the Chinese market opens again, K-pop and K-culture will experience a second renaissance.″