Looks like Björk has gone and ruined the Tibet-praising fun of anybody planning a gig in China.
Days after the Icelandic imp concluded a Shanghai show by shouting pro-Tibet sentiments, government officials are vowing to crack down on future outbursts from visiting performers.
"We will further tighten controls on foreign artists performing in China in order to prevent similar cases from happening in the future," the Ministry of Culture said in a statement, per Reuters. "We shall never tolerate any attempt to separate Tibet from China and will no longer welcome any artists who deliberately do this."
China invaded Tibet in 1951 and claims the province as part of its own historical territory. Human rights advocates have long decried Beijing's treatment of Tibetans, and many Western artists have rallied to the Dalai Lama's cause, calling on China to liberate the Himalayan region.
Björk—who was part of the lineup of the all-star 1996 Free Tibet concert in San Francisco—ended her concert Sunday by chanting "Tibet! Tibet!" at the end of her song "Declare Independence." She then shouted the lyrics "raise your flag!" several times.
According to the BBC, while there were no audible booing, many in the audience left the venue quickly once the show was over.
The "outburst," as official Chinese media sites painted it, soon made headlines in the international press, forcing China's Ministry of Culture to issue a denunciation through state-run news agency Xinhua.
"Some artist deliberately turned a commercial show into a political performance, which not only broke Chinese law but hurt Chinese audiences' feelings," the statement continued. "What Björk said in Shanghai has aroused strong resentment among the general public in China."
The censorship-happy ministry asserted that the diminutive pop star's eruption "not only broke Chinese laws and regulations and hurt the feelings of Chinese people, but also went against the professional code of an artist."
Not so, says the "Human Behavior" songbird.
"I am not a politician," Björk wrote on her website. "I am first and last a musician and as such I feel my duty to try to express the whole range of human emotions. The urge for declaring independence is just one of them but an important one that we all feel at some times in our lives."
"Declare Independence" was originally written in support of Greenland and the Faroe Islands, both in Denmark's domain, but Björk performed the track last month at a gig in Japan, dedicating the tune to the people of Kosovo, who had just split from neighboring Serbia.
"This song was written more with the personal in mind but the fact that it has translated to its broadest meaning, the struggle of a suppressed nation, gives me much pleasure," she said on her site.
A rep for the Culture Ministry has said that Björk would be banned from future appearances in the country if she repeated such taboo behavior.