CHINA: China's 'Larry King' has talk show taken off the air

Lang's Leisure Comments On Finance discontinued; host attacked sale of state assets to private firms

Straits Times
Thrusday, March 16, 2006

Beijing --- Controversial economist Lang Xian-ping, who used his popular Shanghai television talk show to attack the 'cheap' sale of state assets to private firms, had his programme taken off the air recently.

Also known as China's Larry King, he recorded his last programme at the end of last month after being told he did not have the licence issued by the government to all television comperes to certify they can speak standard Chinese.

China uses such licences to ensure that standard Chinese, rather than dialects, dominates the media. But such rules would be irrelevant in the case of the Taiwan-born and Hong Kong-based professor of finance who is fluent in Chinese.

The move is seen more as an attempt to rein in public debate about sensitive economic issues.

Mr Lang was almost an immediate hit after he launched his business chat show, Lang's Leisure Comments On Finance, on cable TV in Shanghai in 2004.

But he generated controversy by attacking the sale of state assets at what he said were often fire-sale prices in under-the-table deals to private entrepreneurs. He has criticised privatisation as a slow-motion Russian-style theft of state assets.

His tirades struck a raw nerve in a country increasingly concerned about corruption in the rapid accumulation of wealth by some entrepreneurs in recent years.

Although he claims he never solicited their support, many of China's so-called 'new leftists' have enthusiastically backed his criticism of the sale of state assets.

His broadsides have forced an abrupt about-turn by the central government on the sensitive issue of the privatisation of state companies.

In December 2004, the central government body responsible for managing state enterprises banned management buyouts for large companies and set stringent conditions for such transactions for smaller government-owned businesses.

The state-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (Sasac), which controls China's state companies, eased the rules only recently but said the practices would still be put under 'strict control'.

Mr Lang's claims about the private wealth generated for the managers of state companies is borne out by a list -- published in January -- of the country's richest business leaders. According to EuromoneyChina, five of 50 executives listed acquired their shares through management buyouts.

Many entrepreneurs attacked by him have long attempted to have him reined in, but Shanghai television regulators had resisted such pressures until recently.

Date Posted: 3/16/2006