Chat show economist forced off China TV
China has forced one of the country's controversial economic commentators off the air, closing his top-rating programme on the grounds that he did not meet the government's spoken language standards for national television.
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Lang Xianping, who is also known as Larry Lang, recorded his last programme at the end of February after being told he did not have the licence issued by the government to all television comperes to certify they can speak standard Chinese.
The resort to such creative bureaucratic means to shut down the programme, Lang's Leisure Comments on Finance, is a measure of the authorities' current eagerness to rein in public debate about sensitive economic issues.
China uses such licences to ensure that standard Chinese, rather than the country's innumerable dialects, dominates the media and promotes national unity.
But such rules wouldnormally be irrelevant inthe case of Mr Lang, aTaiwanese-born professor of finance in Hong Kong, who is fluent in Chinese.
Mr Lang was an almost immediate hit after he launched his business chat show on cable TV in Shanghai in 2004.
But he generated controversy, unusually not by criticising the excessive state control of the economy, as many of China's pro-market economists have done, sometimes at risk to their careers.
Rather, Mr Lang made his name by attacking the sale of state assets at what he said were often fire-sale prices in under-the-table deals to private entrepreneurs.
Mr Lang's tirades against the sale of state assets struck a nerve in a country increasingly concerned about the corruption involved in the rapid accumulation of wealth by some entrepreneurs in recent years.
The government agency that oversees large state enterprises banned management buyouts in early 2005, largely as a result of the controversy generated by Mr Lang, and has only recently slightly eased the rules.
Many entrepreneurs attacked by Mr Lang have long attempted to have him reined in, but Shanghai television regulators had resisted such pressures until recently.
Although he claims he never solicited their support, many of China's so-called "new leftists" have enthusiastically backed Mr Lang's criticism of the sale of state assets.
Mr Lang could not be contacted last night, but his assistant and Shanghai-based television producers confirmed the language licence had been used as a pretext to get the show off the air.
Most of the renewed wave of censorship in China over the past year, which has seen numerous papers closed and journalists jailed, has been directed at government critics generally classified as "liberals".
But while the government has recognised the growing rich-poor gap as a serious problem, it is clearly uncomfortable about the issue being highlighted, whatever the critic's colour.
“财经郎闲评”电视节目停播
中国已停播引起争议的经济评论家郎咸平的电视节目，以他没有达到国家电视广播普通话水平为由，终止了收视率极高电视节目“财经郎闲评”。
郎咸平于2月底录制了最后一档节目，他被告知他没有政府颁发给所有电视节目主持人的普通话水平证书。
政府为关闭郎咸平的“财经郎闲评”节目，竟采用这种富有创意的官僚手段，说明当局目前急于控制有关敏感经济问题的公众辩论。
中国使用这类证书，目的是确保标准普通话（而非众多方言）主导媒体，并促进国家团结。
一般情况下，这种规定不会适用于郎咸平。郎咸平出生在台湾，是香港的金融学教授，中文流利。
郎咸平2004年在上海有线电视台推出财经评论节目后，立即引起轰动。
但不同寻常的是，郎咸平并非因批评政府过度控制经济而引起争议的。中国许多支持市场经济的经济学家，有时冒着丢掉职业的风险，都曾提出这种批评。
相比之下，郎咸平是因抨击贱卖国有资产给私营企业家而著称。他说，国有资产的出售是幕后操作，价格极低。
郎咸平对出售国有资产的抨击，触及了中国的敏感问题。最近几年，一些企业家财富积累速度很快，其中涉及的腐败现象令人日益感到忧虑。
2005年初，主管大型国有企业的政府机构下令禁止管理层收购，那主要是由郎先生引发的论战造成的。最近，这方面的规则稍有放松。
许多遭抨击的企业家，早就试图压制郎咸平的评论。此前，上海电视监管部门一直在抵制这种压力。
中国许多所谓的“新左派”人士热情支持郎先生对出售国有资产的批评，尽管郎咸平称从未请求他们支持。
昨晚记者无法联系到郎咸平，但他的助手和上海的电视制片人证实，节目停播的借口是郎咸平没有普通话水平证书。
过去一年中国新一轮的审查潮，一直把矛头对准批评政府的人士，他们通常被归类于“自由派”。
尽管政府已经意识到，不断扩大的贫富差距是个严重的问题。但无论批评者带有哪种政治色彩，过分突出这一问题明显使政府感到不快。
