Profiles

China's 'Larry King' speaks out on TV show

(Channelnewsasia)
Updated: 2006-10-08 17:10

One of China's most popular television hosts says he was forced off the air by just-fired Shanghai Communist Party boss Chen Liangyu because he was preparing a show about the graft scandal that led to the politician's downfall.

The Chinese outspoken economist Lang Xianping [file photo]

Lang Xianping, who garnered a reputation as the "Larry King of China", had his controversial financial program on Shanghai television axed in February after he was officially told his Mandarin Chinese was not good enough.

"It was just an excuse," said the native Chinese speaker and host of "Larry Lang Live", a weekly talk show that drew millions of Chinese viewers for its sharp but colorful criticism of the country's endemic corruption problems.

"The real reason the show was cancelled was I was designing a show behind the corruption case of Chen Liangyu," Lang told AFP in an interview from Shanghai.

Beijing announced on Monday that Chen, the most powerful official of China's eastern commercial hub, had been sacked due to his alleged links to the misuse of about 400 million dollars from the city's retirement deposits.

According to Lang, 50, whose day job is teaching finance at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, he was set to air a program focusing on graft when authorities suddenly pulled the plug.

One of the episodes in his special three-part series was to tackle investment manager and non-executive director of state-run giant Shanghai Electric Group, Zhang Rongkun, who was detained last month for his role in the pension scandal.

"Zhang was my target because we wanted to know how this man had so much money to be able to build two highways," said Lang.

"At the time, I did not know about Chen."

Lang aired one chapter on medical malpractice and a second on Zhou Zhengyi, the Shanghai real estate tycoon who was jailed in 2004 for stock market fraud but also indirectly linked to Chen.

In the second episode, shown once before it was pulled, Lang argued that Zhou, who also has equity interests in Hong Kong, should face charges there too.

After his 18-month show was canned entirely, Lang, a self-confessed lover of the limelight, disappeared from the public eye.

"It was dangerous," said Lang, who received death threats as well as calls in an internal report authored by Chinese academics for his incarceration and/or expulsion from the country.

AFP was unable to independently confirm Lang's claims.

The chief editor of Larry Lang Live, Wang Lei, was reluctant to discuss details concerning the program's abrupt end when contacted by AFP.

Lang had also incurred the very public wrath of officials after charging that executives of state-owned enterprises engaged in management buyouts were hoodwinking the public by securing assets at bargain-basement prices.

In his weekly cable program Lang often argued that the government should halt such practices until a stronger legal system capable of monitoring such acquisitions was put in place.

Mainland academics and company officials responded by calling Lang an anti-reform traitor, a charge which he said only strengthened his argument and went to the heart of China's widespread corruption problem.

His controversial position also struck a chord with a public that worries corruption is China's biggest challenge after nearly 30 years of economic reform that has vanquished Marxist ideology in favor of unrestrained capitalism.

Lang, who maintains Chen's fall from grace proved he was "correct" about social security graft, said he broke his self-imposed silence because it was now safe to do so and he was keen to get back on television.

"I initiated this myself," Lang said, adding that he was waiting for the political dust to settle before approaching the Shanghai leadership about resurrecting his television career.