China has banned all celebrities from endorsing a range of products and banned those with “lapsed morals” from endorsing anything, as part of an ongoing drive to align society with “core socialist values.”
The regulations, announced by state regulators this week, bar Chinese celebrities from publicly endorsing or advertising health, education and financial commodities, including e-cigarettes and baby formula.
Regulators said the push was to ensure China’s society was “guided by Xi Jinping (習近平) thought on socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new era,” referring to the sweeping ideology underpinning the rule of the Xi-led Communist party.
Photo: Liberty Times
“Celebrities should consciously practice socialist core values in their advertising endorsement activities, and endorsement activities should conform to social morals and traditional virtues,” the new regulations said.
It is the latest regulatory move in a crackdown on the entertainment industry, in which celebrities have effectively been blacklisted over scandals and interventions into online fandom.
The rules also banned companies from hiring celebrities found to have “lapsed morals” or engaged in illegal behavior including tax evasion, drunkenness, drug addiction and fraud, and from using images of Communist party leaders, revolutionary leaders and heroes in their advertising.
The authorities said the regulations had been introduced in response to celebrities illegally or falsely endorsing “bad ideas.”
“The media is lax, allowing illegal and immoral stars to participate in advertising endorsements. The chaos in the field of advertising endorsements has seriously infringed upon the rights and interests of consumers, disrupted the market order and polluted the social atmosphere, and the people have expressed strong reactions,” it said, according to state media.
Under Xi’s increasingly authoritarian rule, China’s government has tightened control over the country’s entertainment industry and celebrity fandom in an attempt to reshape China’s pop culture landscape.
In September last year, authorities banned some reality TV talent shows and ordered broadcasters not to promote what it derogatorily referred to as “sissy” men. A two-month regulatory operation also banned the ranking of celebrities and cultural products in an effort to rein in the “chaos” and monetization of online fandom.
In the same month, a Beijing entertainment symposium with the theme “Love the party, love the country, advocate morality and art” was told the industry must act with morality in both public and private.
The president of China’s advertising association, Zhang Guohua, said the regulations would contribute to a “more standardised and healthy improvement” of the industry.
“This does not mean that celebrity endorsements will be limited, but everyone will be more cautious, and the artists will be more responsible and self-disciplined. As long as the law is complied with, celebrity endorsements will still be carried out normally within the scope of compliance and legality, so the impact is positive,” Zhang told domestic media.
He said those who had “enjoyed the benefits of being a public figure” should prepare to be restrained in their actions because of their influence as role models.
“You have such an industry status and influence, so you should be cautious in your words and deeds,” Zhang said.
In recent years, China’s massive entertainment industry has been rocked by celebrity scandals that have crossed the line of extreme political sensitivity inside China.
In 2021, the actor Zheng Shuang was fined nearly 300m RMB (US$46 million) for tax evasion and banned from being invited on to entertainment programmes. Around the same time, Fendi brand ambassador Zhao Wei had her name removed from all works on major entertainment platforms for unknown reasons.
Several companies or celebrities were also punished for their endorsements of bad or fraudulent products. Last year, the standup comedian Li Dan was fined about $134,000 over a women’s underwear ad that was deemed insulting to women, the state media outlet Global Times reported.
The new guidelines also require celebrities to fully understand and have used the product they are endorsing
In Taiwan there are two economies: the shiny high tech export economy epitomized by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and its outsized effect on global supply chains, and the domestic economy, driven by construction and powered by flows of gravel, sand and government contracts. The latter supports the former: we can have an economy without TSMC, but we can’t have one without construction. The labor shortage has heavily impacted public construction in Taiwan. For example, the first phase of the MRT Wanda Line in Taipei, originally slated for next year, has been pushed back to 2027. The government
July 22 to July 28 The Love River’s (愛河) four-decade run as the host of Kaohsiung’s annual dragon boat races came to an abrupt end in 1971 — the once pristine waterway had become too polluted. The 1970 event was infamous for the putrid stench permeating the air, exacerbated by contestants splashing water and sludge onto the shore and even the onlookers. The relocation of the festivities officially marked the “death” of the river, whose condition had rapidly deteriorated during the previous decade. The myriad factories upstream were only partly to blame; as Kaohsiung’s population boomed in the 1960s, all household
Allegations of corruption against three heavyweight politicians from the three major parties are big in the news now. On Wednesday, prosecutors indicted Hsinchu County Commissioner Yang Wen-ke (楊文科) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), a judgment is expected this week in the case involving Hsinchu Mayor Ann Kao (高虹安) of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) and former deputy premier and Taoyuan Mayor Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is being held incommunicado in prison. Unlike the other two cases, Cheng’s case has generated considerable speculation, rumors, suspicions and conspiracy theories from both the pan-blue and pan-green camps.
Stepping inside Waley Art (水谷藝術) in Taipei’s historic Wanhua District (萬華區) one leaves the motorcycle growl and air-conditioner purr of the street and enters a very different sonic realm. Speakers hiss, machines whir and objects chime from all five floors of the shophouse-turned- contemporary art gallery (including the basement). “It’s a bit of a metaphor, the stacking of gallery floors is like the layering of sounds,” observes Australian conceptual artist Samuel Beilby, whose audio installation HZ & Machinic Paragenesis occupies the ground floor of the gallery space. He’s not wrong. Put ‘em in a Box (我們把它都裝在一個盒子裡), which runs until Aug. 18, invites