The Black Eyed Peas have announced that they plan to perform in China despite the recent protest over the country’s human rights record and the calls from several politically conscious artists to boycott.  Richard Gere is leading the campaign to urge acts to cancel their China tour stops until the country allows Tibet the autonomy that activists have been calling for.

Group lead man, will.i.am called the recent crackdown “messed up” in a recent BBC interview and says its wrong to “punish a whole country.  They have all this Chinese boycott stuff — they want to boycott the games but do the people get punished when they have nothing to do with what’s going on?  If you boycott China, when do they boycott America for what we’re doing in Iraq?”

Along with Gere, actress Mia Farrow’s beef is over China’s support of the genocide in Sudan’s Darfur region and director Steven Spielberg recently stepped down as the artistic director of 2008 Olympic Games in  protest.