Jessie J's China comeback spotlights Western artists' pivot to lucrative Asian market

Jessica Cornish, known to the world as Jessie J, stood on the stage of Singer in Changsha on May 29th, just seven days after announcing she had beaten cancer. The British pop star delivered a powerful rendition of Frank Sinatra's My Way to an audience that would eventually number in the billions. She performed her new song California too, but with a twist—she rewrote the lyrics on the fly, swapping California for Changsha, the Chinese city hosting the competition. It was a small gesture, but it signaled something larger: Cornish had returned to the place where her career had been reborn.

She first arrived in China in 2018 as a contestant on Singer, a singing competition that functions much like The Voice in the West. She won that year. A single episode of the show can accumulate more than 20 billion views. At that moment, the Chinese music market was already humming with potential—hundreds of millions of young, digitally connected fans hungry for music, and a government that had just cracked down on illegal streaming, suddenly making copyright protections and artist earnings far more secure. Since Cornish's breakthrough, the Chinese recorded music industry has climbed from seventh largest in the world to fourth, recently surpassing Germany. The market is enormous, and it is lucrative.

Cornish's career in the West had begun to stall. Her pivot to China was not sentimental; it was strategic. But it also felt genuine. She wrote to her followers on Weibo, the Chinese social media platform, that returning was "nostalgic." She told The Guardian she felt celebrated there in a way she no longer did at home. "I just think in life you should go where you're celebrated," she said. One fan responded on Weibo with a declaration that in China, no one was thought to sing better than her. With fewer than a million followers on the platform, Cornish was hardly a household name by Chinese standards. Yet the market had embraced her in a way the West no longer did.

Other Western artists have noticed. Westlife, the Irish boyband, has performed in China more than twenty times over more than two decades, steadily building what they now describe as one of their most important relationships anywhere in the world. In 2023, they performed an entire song in Mandarin—a cover of The Ordinary Road by Chinese pop star Pu Shu—at a show in Wuhan. This year, they appeared at China's Spring Festival Gala, performing to an audience of more than 650 million. Charli xcx, before she became famous for Brat, collaborated with Chinese electronic musician Howie Lee on a Mandarin version of her song Boys. Even mid-tier British indie bands like Sea Power have found unexpected followings in China, partly after scoring a popular video game.

The appeal is partly musical. Chinese audiences prize melody above all else and deeply respect pure vocal technique. They love singers with powerful voices. Cornish possesses both. She also appreciates what she calls the respect Chinese audiences show for "voices and technique." She misses, she said, "people just listening." But success in China requires more than talent. It requires adaptation. Cornish has had to carefully plan her outfits to hide her tattoos—the government officially banned visible tattoos on television in 2018, a rule that has only tightened since her first appearance. Language matters too. Westlife's decision to perform in Mandarin impressed audiences in ways that few other gestures could.

The market has grown harder to penetrate since the Covid-19 pandemic. With no foreign artists able to enter China for years, the domestic music industry raised its standards dramatically. Chinese stars became dominant. Alex Taggart, founder of the artist management firm Isle Of, who worked in China for several years, explained that the pandemic "raised the bar for how interesting you have to be to the Chinese music consumer in order for it to be lucrative." Before Covid, he said, it was much easier for a random Western artist to succeed there. Now they must work harder, smarter, and with greater cultural awareness.

The Chinese government, meanwhile, is eager to attract international stars to help boost a flagging economy. In 2024, Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West, announced a surprise show in Hainan, a tropical island in southern China. It sold out within minutes and generated 373 million yuan—roughly 41.2 million pounds—in tourism revenue. Other cities immediately wanted their own version. West performed again in Shanghai last year. His presence in China is notable given his controversial statements in the West, but as one anonymous music industry professional explained, the concern in China is not explicit lyrics—those are permitted on Chinese platforms—but politics. "If someone was outspoken against the Chinese government, they would struggle to build a career in China," the professional said. West has never publicly crossed that line.

Katy Perry learned this lesson the hard way. She was reportedly banned from China after performing in Taiwan while wearing the Taiwanese flag as a cape. Yet the Chinese authorities apparently reconsidered the lost revenue. Last year, Perry was allowed to enter the country and perform five sold-out shows in Shanghai. On her return, she called Chinese audiences her "best fans." The market, it seems, has a way of forgiving those who can fill venues and generate spending. For Western artists, China has become less a cultural destination and more a necessary one—a place where careers can be revived, where audiences still listen, and where the money is real.