Political capital and stardom in China: the transnational persona of Choo Ja-hyun

Abstract

ABSTRACT Since July 2016, in response to South Korea’s announcement of its deployment of the American anti-missile system THAAD, China has barred the showing of Korean media content and the performance of Korean stars in China. While the retaliatory measure was domestically backed by the rising tide of anti-Korean nationalism, among the Korean celebrities who disappeared from the Chinese screens overnight, the Chinese public exceptionally sympathised with the Korean actress Choo Ja-hyun [Chu Jahyeon]. This article investigates what made Choo special, focusing on how she presents herself as a foreigner who ‘genuinely loves China’. It adapts Pierre Bourdieu’s capital theory to argue that this persona enabled Choo to accumulate personal political capital from the Chinese audience and, thus, mitigate, though not overcome the Chinese government’s de facto ban. This case study of Choo Ja-hyun will contribute to the growing body of scholarship on the crisscrossing of stardom and politics in China by offering a transnational perspective and bringing attention to individual stars’ agency to navigate within China’s state-market complex.