Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Friday, March 07, 2008

Political debate with Chinese characteristics

China to crack down on pop stars

"China is to impose stricter rules on foreign rock and pop stars after singer Bjork caused controversy by shouting "Tibet, Tibet" at a Shanghai concert.

Her cry followed a powerful performance of her song Declare Independence...

"China's culture ministry said the outburst "broke Chinese law and hurt Chinese people's feelings" and pledged to "further tighten controls"...

"Her behaviour at Sunday's Shanghai concert has not been reported in the state-controlled Chinese media."

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2 Comments:

At 8:42 PM, Blogger Ken Wedding said...

Harry Connick, Jr. a threat to social stability?

"We went to the Harry Connick, Jr. show on Tuesday night and had a good time but the performance wasn’t as stellar as I had expected... He came packing a big band, but few numbers really allowed the horns to cut loose, other songs made no use of the horns at all. It seemed an oddly expensive exercise to bring such a large group of back-up musicians all the way to China only to have them lay out for half the set...

"Musician J.Q. Whitcomb... reported... 'But then it dawned on us what the Ministry of Culture said in response to Bjork’s political outburst at her concert the week before, right at the end of the press release: “From now on, stricter controls will be placed on performances by foreign artists in China to prevent similar incidents from happening.” Bingo! Sure enough, players in Connick’s band told us that the government people showed up an hour before they were to play and went to town on their set list, crossing off a number of tunes they disapproved of (what was Harry thinking, trying to play all that counter-revolutionary garbage anyway?) and replacing them with “safer” tunes.'..."

 
At 9:20 AM, Blogger Sophie Pilgrim said...

Yahoo and MSN are supporting the Chinese authorities by posting 'wanted' posters for the rioters on their sites. Two of the 24 on the list have already been caught.
http://observers.france24.com/en/content/20080321-yahoo-msn-used-root-out-tibetan-rioters-china

 

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