New | China detains foreign website contributor for 'damaging the nation's image'

A retired Beijing resident has been criminally detained for allegedly sharing wrongful information with a widely read Chinese news website abroad and thus harming China’s national reputation.

Xiang Nanfu was held on May 3 in Beijing on charges of “provoking and stirring trouble” for damaging China’s national reputation, state media said on Tuesday.

His posts on Boxun, a Chinese-language news aggregator based in the United States, “seriously harmed the image of the state and caused vile impacts”, the state-run news agency said.

Xiang's apparent admission of guilty was broadcast on national television on Tuesday. “I have smeared the nation and the party, my actions were criminal,” he said in his broadcast admission. “I am sorry to the party and the government, and my family.”

He was also seen on national television admitting to paying for sex and having extramarital relationships. He is the latest in a series of outspoken critics to be paraded on television by the authorities.

Hundreds of bloggers and journalists have been arrested in recent months as part of a government-backed campaign to assert greater control over social  media which has seen influential critics of Beijing paraded on state television.