Around the world, BTS songs can be heard and viewers can watch the series "Squid Game" and the film "Parasite" but China has so far strictly kept the wave of Korean content away.
This week may have started a change in that attitude, as Tencent Video began showing the 2018 film "Hotel by the River" by art-house director Hong Sang-soo about a poet who meets his sons who live far away.
The move was hailed by representatives of Korea's entertainment industry as a "partial lifting" of China's ban, according to Variety.
South Korean President Yun Suk-yeol appears to have contributed to the development. Last week he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Bali.
"A Korean film was recently shown on Chinese OTT after the six-year ban," Kim Eun-hee, South Korea's senior presidential secretary for press affairs, told reporters. "We hope this small gesture will lead to great, meaningful progress in the future of bilateral relations between the two countries after the recent summit," she stressed."
The ban was imposed due to political and diplomatic concerns. China strongly opposed the deployment of US missile systems in South Korea in 2018. South Korea argued that the systems were necessary to protect itself from a nuclear-armed North Korea.
For some producers and distributors, the blockade meant the loss of one of their biggest export markets at a time when K-Pop and Korean TV dramas like Descendants of the Sun were particularly popular.
"The South Korean President also stressed the need to strengthen interaction between the younger generations of the two countries. President Xi agreed with the view," the South Korean president's spokeswoman said. "China responded positively to South Korea with Chinese OTT releasing the Korean film," she added."
Source: CNA
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