CCTV host may sue over xenophobia claim

This undated file photo shows Yang Rui hosting a program. [Source: http://cctv.cntv.cn/]

A Chinese broadcaster tonight said he is considering legal action against a blogger who accused him of being a xenophobe for comments he made on Sina Weibo.

Yang Rui, who hosts Dialogue, an English-language show on CCTV News, said Charlie Custer, editor of China Geeks, had "damaged his reputation."

The row stems from a Sina Weibo micro blog posted by Yang on Friday that read:

"The public security bureau wants to clean out the foreign trash. To arrest foreign thugs and protect innocent girls, they need to focus on the disaster areas of Wudaokou (a student area) and Sanlitun (a bar area). Cut off the traffickers, including those who can't find jobs in the US and Europe that come to China to take money, engage themselves in human trafficking and illegal immigration. Identify foreign spies, who live with Chinese women while collecting intelligence and GPS information for Japan, South Korea, the United States and European countries while holding a tourist visa. That foreign bitch has been expelled and closed Al-Jazeera's Beijing bureau. We should kick out those who demonize China."

In response, Custer, a blogger from the United States who is fluent in Mandarin, launched an online campaign calling for the Dialogue host to be fired.

"These vicious lies do not represent the vast majority of foreign citizens in China," Custer wrote on Sina Weibo. As of Sunday night, the post had been forwarded 3,600 times.

Custer declined to comment when contacted by China Daily.

"His remarks are nothing but libel against a sincere and conscientious host who has been devoted to international cultural exchanges for 13 years," Yang said in a telephone interview.

Read more in Monday's China Daily.