BEIJING: Chinese authorities fined a comedy company millions of yuan on Wednesday and threatened further legal action after one of its members made an oblique joke about the People's Liberation Army during a stand-up act.
Beijing's Municipal Culture and Tourism Bureau said on Wednesday it had investigated Li's company following a report from a member of the public and found the joke had broken the law and"caused a bad social impact". The space for dissent in China has shrunk dramatically over the past decade under President Xi Jinping.
"After 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. A hashtag relating to the topic was the most searched on Weibo on Wednesday, with more than 700 million hits.