Chinese State Media Backs Commentary Supporting Xi Jinping's Crackdown on 'Sissy Stars'

China's state-run media system shared an opinion piece professing admiration for Chinese President Xi Jinping's crackdown on celebrity culture and Western influences.

The piece entitled "Everyone can feel that a profound change is underway!" was written by former state media editor Li Guangman and reportedly published on Wechat. In it, he described Xi's actions as part of a "revolution" that will bring the country closer to the values originally intended by the Chinese Communist Party's founders.

"The capital market will no longer become a paradise for capitalists to get rich overnight," Li wrote. "The cultural market will no longer be a paradise for sissy stars, and news and public opinion will no longer be in a position worshiping Western culture."

Xi has recently unrolled a series of regulations that the parties said are aimed to address "common prosperity" in a country where wealth inequality continues to rise. These actions range from limiting the number of hours children can play video games to regulatory crackdowns on Bitcoin miners and the nation's leading tech firms. And as Li pointed out, these actions also extended to China's celebrities.

Last week, Xi's government barred platforms from publishing popularity lists and slapped regulations on the sale of fan merchandise to manage what it calls the country's "chaotic" celebrity fan culture. As online influencer culture continues to rise across the world, China has seen a rise in what Li and other media outlets refer to as "Rice Circles"—where groups of young fans congregate around their favorite artists, spending large amounts of money to help them win competition shows, and hurling insults at rival groups.

These celebrities—some of whom have drawn inspiration from South Korean K-pop stars and other Japanese and American celebrities—are part of the group of "sissies" Li fears are promoting capitalist values in the country. By combatting them and their influence, he said China can build a "build a lively, healthy, masculine, strong, and people-oriented culture."

Li framed this issue as being a part of the current challenges facing the country as it deals with a "severe and complex international environment." He wrote that the United States is "implementing severe military threats, economic and technological blockades" that he said could lead to a "Soviet Union"-like downfall if the nation were to allow its youth to "lose their strong and masculine glory."

"We need to combat the chaos of big capital manipulation, platform monopoly, and bad money driving out good money in the capital market," he argued. "We must use all means to combat the various star-chasing and fan-chasing phenomena that exist in the current society."