SHANGHAI — The 2015 Shanghai Auto Show, scheduled to start on April 20, won’t have any scantily clad models adorning new cars shown off at the convention.
In fact, it won’t have any models at all.
Begun in 1985, the Shanghai Auto Show is China’s oldest international automobile exhibition.
Organizers, however, have been stung by government criticism by Beijing’s Capital Ethics Development Office, which claimed that revealing clothing of some models at the auto show has had a “negative social impact.”
So this year, organizers decided to drop any connotations of sex, and thus the models.
“Companies should focus on product quality and technology,” said an announcement from the organizers. “Auto shows are supposed to give audiences an enjoyment of art. We hope exhibitors promote their products in a healthy and classy way. Activities with low taste and those that violate social morality are prohibited.”
Auto shows in other cities, including Shenyang in Liaoning province, have launched regulations to avoid scantily clad models, instead of stopping them altogether.
China for the past few years has found ways to scuttle the depiction of sex in society.
In December, China’s censors said they confiscated a total of 15.79 million illegal publications in 2014. The country, through the years, also has seized hundreds upon hundreds of websites it deems “obscene.”
