IT WAS 11 p.m. on December 30th in the packed Sunflower Club in Beijing's Ritan Park. The popular rock singer Cui Jian was preparing to take the stage. A plainclothes policeman told him that if he did, the manager of the club would be taken away.
Cui was left in a dilemma. He did not want to get his friend into trouble. "Go and sing anyway and pretend you are drunk," suggested a colleague. In the end, another singer took the stage and sang some of Cui's best-known numbers. The crowd went wild.
According to this account, given by people in the club that evening, the 35-year-old rock star became the latest performing artist to fall foul of a new assault by the Chinese Communist Party leadership on unorthodox music, drama, literature and dance, especially that which it sees as decadent and western-inspired.
Cui has lived on the fringes in China since one of his songs, Nothing to My Name, became an anthem of the 1989 student pro-democracy movement. He has performed to ecstatic crowds in recent years, articulating the frustrations of young people. On the grounds that he had excited fans too much, the police earlier last year threatened to close the Sunflower if he performed there again.
The authorities also banned an experimental drama in Beijing two weeks ago, confirming the fears of many artists of a new tightening of control of the cultural scene. The drama, called Comrade Ah Q and named after a classical novel by Lu Xun, was banned just before its premiere. It was due to start on December 22nd and run for 40 performances. The company, Central Experimental Theatre, had planned a national tour.
"It signals the tightening of cultural policy. There will be more control," an artist told reporters, adding that stage performances had not been banned in this way before. The script of the play, about a man in the Qing dynasty who claims psychological victories even when made a laughing stock of by his critics, had already passed examination by cultural officials.
The new year in China has started with fresh attacks in the media on "immoral literature" and dance. The People's Daily accused authors of failing to respect the fundamental morality of the masses and "sliding towards pornography". The China News Service quoted criticisms of modern dance as "falling to the lowest common denominator of three dancers to satisfy their base interests."
The People's Daily said it was imperative that "we redress the moral order of literature." It said "we must fight against the return of old morality and feudal superstition and build up the spirit of the Chinese nation, its good traditions and ideals."
The new conservative attack on unapproved arts follows the December congress of the China Federation of Literary and Arts Circles, during which President Jiang Zeming called on artists to observe the party line. Mr Jiang has been promoting a new "spiritual civilisation", a euphemism for greater state control.
During the congress, the first in eight years, the spokesman, Mr Ding Guangen, emphasised that literature and the arts must be subordinate to politics.
A "Battle Against Pornography" conference held in Beijing in December also called on TV, film and radio producers to struggle against counter-revolutionary and pornographic materials.