BEIJING-A joke by a Chinese stand-up comedian seen to be ridiculing the military has prompted a crackdown on the country’s booming comedy scene. But it hasn’t stopped there. Music performances are now being targeted, hitting the country’s live entertainment sector just as it recovers from years of Covid restrictions. The BBC’s China correspondent Stephen McDonell reports from Beijing. The mosh pit expands and contracts with bodies crashing into one another.  What might appear violent and aggressive is actually a friendly, high-spirited celebration of music and collective enjoyment. After years spent waiting to shake off China’s Covid restrictions, there are smiles all round. A friend passes me a drink just as the human wave approaches and I get dragged in, spraying the contents of my cup over all those around me. Nobody cares. It only adds to the desired chaos. It’s a hot evening and we’ll all dry off quickly. In a country where cultural events are closely monitored by the Communist Party, the underground music scene in the capital has remained energetic, real, cheeky and innovative. It’s a world, for the most part, beyond the grasp of dullard officials. A venue owner once told me about a visit he’d had from a local government representative who looked around the area at the front of the stage and asked where the tables and chairs were. The owner tried to explain that the customers preferred to make do without them. He told me he could almost see the cogs turning in the official’s brain: they… don’t… want to sit down… why… what? Beijing has always been at the heart of this vibrant scene. Every sneaker-staring, guitar-hugging kid with a broody set of love songs who wants to stand up and play, drifts into this city. Higher rents and gentrification were already posing great challenges before three years of tough Covid restrictions put some venues out of business. 

But after the government suddenly abandoned its zero-Covid policy, the music came back quickly.
Audiences couldn’t wait for some live sound again, the bands were up for performing and the bars were certainly eager to make money to pay the bills. During his live act, he described two dogs chasing a squirrel and said they should “adopt a good style of work” in order to “fight and win battles”. It was an expression which Chinese leader Xi Jinping has used to praise the People’s Liberation Army.
Audio of the joke was published on social media and subsequently weaponised by ultra-nationalists who even targeted the audience for laughing at it.