Top Chinese TV presenter to face 'severe punishment' for Mao insult
|
Version 0 of 1. One of China’s best known television presenters is to face “severe punishment” after being caught on camera referring to his country’s Great Helmsman, Mao Zedong, as an “old son of a bitch”. As the host of “Star Boulevard” - a Britain’s Got Talent style variety show - Bi Fujian was one of the most recognisable faces on state broadcaster CCTV. The 56-year-old had worked for the channel since 1989. However, Bi’s future at the channel was cast into doubt in April after he was filmed at a private dinner mocking Chairman Mao, who founded the People’s Republic of China in 1949 and ran it until his death in 1976. The video – which has been viewed more than 480,000 times on Youtube – shows Bi entertaining fellow diners with a rendition of a song from a Cultural Revolution era opera called Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy. The television host peppers his table-side performance with a series of sarcastic asides about Mao, including: “Don’t mention that old son of a bitch – he tormented us!” Those “disparaging” remarks represented “a serious violation of political disciplines”, China’s media watchdog announced on Sunday. It called for CCTV, which had already suspended its star presenter, to impose a “severe punishment”. In an editorial the China Discipline Inspection Daily, a state-run newspaper, said CCTV had been ordered to “educate its entire staff” in order to “combat behaviours that violate political disciplines and regulations”. “There should be zero tolerance for such cases,” the newspaper added. News of Bi’s punishment was splashed onto the front pages of many Chinese websites on Sunday with readers weighing in on the episode with thousands of comments. “It is really pathetic and disgusting that after all these decades Mao is still a taboo,” wrote one. Another commented: “Bi should be seriously punished and expelled from the party for insulting Chairman Mao.” Bi made no immediate comment on the reports but has previously apologised for ridiculing Mao. “I feel extremely remorseful and pained,” he wrote in an online post in April. “I sincerely offer my deepest apologies to the public.” The episode coincides with a period of severe political tightening under Xi Jinping, who became president in 2013. Liberal academics, human rights activists, lawyers and journalists all complain of a growing intolerance of any form of public criticism of China’s Communist party rulers. “Bi’s remarks were too careless,” wrote one user of Weibo, China’s Twitter. “He’s a public figure and he should have been lying low.” Additional reporting by Luna Lin |