From the Financial Times (link):
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.
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.
