China fines comedy firm $2 million over army joke

BE IJIN G: Chinese authorities fined a comedy company millions of yuan on Wednesday and threatened further legal action ater one of its members made an oblique joke about the People’s Liberation Army during a stand-up act.

Li Haoshi, who performs under the name House, referred to a PLA slogan during a show in Beijing on Saturday, according to audio posted on social media network Weibo.

Li was talking about his pet dogs chasing a squirrel when he referred to the slogan “Good style of work, capable of winning batles.”

Beijing’s Municipal Culture and Tourism Bureau said on Wednesday it had investigated Li’s agency ater a report from a member of the public and found the joke had broken the law and “caused a bad social impact.”

Xiaoguo Culture Media was fined 14.7 million yuan (US$2.13 million) and had all its future performances suspended indefinitely in both Beijing and Shanghai.

The space for dissent in China has shrunk dramatically over the past decade under leader Xi Jinping. Authorities have tightened online censorship and cracked down on independent media and artistic expression.

Xi has promoted a muscular, hardline nationalism and has made boosting the armed forces’ capabilities a political and economic priority, extolling their strength in domestic propaganda campaigns.

Li and Xiaoguo had already apologised for the performance before Wednesday’s announcement, describing the joke as an “inappropriate metaphor.”

“Ater the performance that day, we immediately criticised House seriously, asked him to reflect on himself, and stopped all his subsequent acting work indefinitely,” a Xiaoguo statement posted on Monday said.

However, the Municipal Culture and Tourism Bureau said the joke had broken a regulation that performances should not “hurt national feelings” or “damage national honour and interests.”

The show should have been stopped when the rule was breached, further compounding the punishment, it said.