Hundreds of fans gather outside a hotel where Chinese-Canadian pop idol Kris Wu was staying in Chengdu, Southwest China's Sichuan Province, in 2017. Photo: VCG

Unhealthy stardom and fanquan (circle of fans) culture is drawing attention in China as authorities seek to push forward with reforms to the sector. 

The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) published an article on its official website on Tuesday, saying that the phenomenon of unhealthy fans culture is borne from profit-seeking by some private investors. 

Fanquan culture has grown alongside China's fast-developing entertainment and culture industry, said Jiang Yu, researcher fellow of Development Research Center of the State Council, in the article. 

He noted that the added value of China's entertainment and culture industry in 2019 reached 4.44 trillion yuan ($687.2 billion), accounting for 4.5 percent of GDP. 

Jiang believed that multiple celebrity scandals not only exposed entertainment industry participants' questionable personal behavior, but also their insufficient understanding of Chinese laws, and the need to push forward with industry reform.  

"Some performing industry artists who display bad character but lack average  performance skills, have become famous overnight driven mainly by the desire to make a profit," said Jiang. 

He stressed that new regulation of fanquan culture was aimed at breaking the unhealthy link between pursuit of excessive profit and a continual lowering of industry standards. 

With the fast expansion of capital, entertainment and culture industry is now excessively commercialized at present, said Jiang in the article. "Capital, idols and fanquan culture had formed a full-set profit chain which serves capitals to earn staggering profits," said Jiang.

Global Times