Chinese TV anchor suspended for making fun of Mao Zedong

State-run broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) said it would punish a popular TV host after video footage was released online showing him poking fun at China's founding father, chairman Mao Zedong.

Bi Fujian, (56), is best known for the talent show Xingguang Dadao, which he hosts on CCTV, subsequently apologised for his satirical singing during a private dinner, which also poked fun at the Communist Party.

Mr Bi made the remarks while singing a section from the Peking opera, "Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy", one of the eight plays allowed to be staged in China during the period of ideological frenzy known as the Cultural Revolution (1966-76).

“As a CCTV host, Bi Fujian’s remarks in the video have had a major social impact. We will seriously handle the matter in line with related regulations and based on careful investigation,” the broadcaster said on its website.

Undermining the text’s patriotic message, Mr Bi sings: “Don’t mention Mao – he has brought misery to us,” and he also says the text contains idle boasts. The footage appears to have been shot on a smartphone and posted online.

While his remarks were mild by western standards, China is currently undergoing a return to hardcore socialist values under President Xi Jinping, who believes that “art must serve socialism and the people”, and must not bear “the stench of money” nor be “a slave to the market”.

The controversy has come shortly after CCTV appointed a senior member of the country's media watchdog and former propaganda official, Nie Chenxi, as its new chief.

“Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy” tells of a conflict between a People’s Liberation Army squad and a bandit gang in northeast China during the Chinese revolution, and is based on a novel written in 1957 by Chinese writer Qu Bo.

The play was recently adapted into a blockbuster film by Hong Kong director Tsui Hark, and musician Brian Eno also made an adaptation of the story in the early 1970s.

Chairman Mao, the founder of modern China, is a revered figure. However, he is also blamed for Stalinesque purges, for causing famine with the disastrous agricultural experiment known as the Great Leap Forward, in which millions died, and in orchestrating the Cultural Revolution, an experiment in ideological extremism that he kickstarted nearly 50 years ago and in which many of today’s leadership suffered, including Mr Xi.

Even though Mao was largely responsible for the excesses of those years, the official line is that his legacy is 30 per cent bad, 70 per cent good. The Communist Party he created is still in power since the 1949 revolution – and talking about Mao’s legacy in public is just not done.

Apologising for his comments, Mr Bi he felt “extreme remorse and hurt” for the effect of his words. “I sincerely offer my deep apologies to society. As a public figure, I will certainly learn a lesson.”