The severe sanction recently pronounced against a show producer has cast a chill over the Chinese cultural milieu, reminding us that free artistic expression is increasingly limited. Last week, the authorities fined the production company Xiaoguo Culture Media nearly two million euros and suspended its shows after a joke, deemed inappropriate, by a comedian about the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) ).
Comedian Li Haoshi hijacked a famous army slogan, which authorities said broke the law and had “negative consequences” on society. During a show on May 13, the comedian explained that he had adopted two “fierce dogs”. He told the story of a chase with squirrels, explaining that in his eyes his two dogs were “capable of winning battles and in style”. In a 2013 speech, Xi Jiping said one of the goals of the Communist Party was to “build a people’s army that follows Party commands, is able to win battles, and is able to win battles with style.”
China’s art scene has always been censored by the Communist Party, but under President Xi Jinping’s decade, the authorities increased their surveillance.
The sanction imposed on Xiaoguo reflects the fact that “the margin of tolerance of the authorities concerning nonconformist speeches is even less important”, estimated with AFP Vivienne Shue, specialist in contemporary China at the University of Oxford. Previously, “it was more common” to see people crossing the line “get away with just a warning,” she said. In the case of Li Haoshi, authorities fined Xiaoguo and opened an investigation against the comedian.
According to Steve Tsang, of the SOAS China institute at the University of London, this sanction “was clearly pronounced” to arouse fear within the cultural community. Following this sanction, musical and humorous shows were canceled throughout the country. In some cases “force majeure” was invoked, but in others no reason was mentioned.
Japanese musician Kanho Yakushiji’s concerts, scheduled in Hangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing, have been canceled and the artist said on Instagram that he did not know the reason. An employee of a performance hall in Shantou (south) claimed that a rock concert was postponed without him knowing why. Several artists contacted by AFP did not want to comment on the current climate, fearing that it would worsen the situation.
Stand-ups, relatively new in China, are particularly risky because “it’s hard to know what the limits are,” said Xiaoning Lu of SOAS. Some nationalists see them as imported from the West, she said.
The Communist Party has always drastically controlled the artistic milieu, co-opting some for political propaganda purposes and repressing all those bordering on dissent. For the founder of Communist China Mao Zedong, there was no “art detached or independent of politics”. “Censorship and self-censorship have always existed even if their intensity has been different from one era to another,” said Sheng Zou of Hong Kong Baptist University. In recent years, the government has issued new “moral guidelines” requiring comedians to embody positivity and patriotism. He also lashed out at what he calls “abnormal aesthetics” in the media, with his sights set on images of girlish-looking men. Last week, Xi Jiping wrote to staff at the National Art Museum of China, urging them to “adhere to the right policy direction”, according to state media.
Announcing the fine imposed on the show producer, the authorities said they hoped that “writers and artists (would comply) with laws and regulations, correct their creative thinking (and) strengthen their moral culture”. “The limits of appropriate humor have always been elastic in China, depending on the political climate,” said SOAS’s Xiaoning Lu. With the Xiaoguo incident, a new red line has been set, for Vivienne Shue, from Oxford. The military institution should be considered “sacred” and should not be a subject of jokes, she explains.
These new limits are an extension of the nationalist spirit that Xi Jinping has personally promoted since coming to power. He frequently referred to the slogan mocked by Li Haoshi and praised the army’s strength in national information campaigns. “In China, anything that undermines national dignity and pride is not trivial,” notes Sheng Zou of Baptist University. “This is where the interests of the state and public opinion most often come together.”
