All performances during the Olympics need government approval, a Beijing Municipal Culture Bureau spokeswoman told a press conference on Tuesday.

At present, most performances at hotels, bars and other venues are held by approved companies and foreign performers using employment passes, Wang Zhu said.

"But performers with only tourist visas are banned from commercial performances, since they have violated China's commercial performance regulations," she said.

She denied rumors that all musical performances at bars would be banned during the Olympics.

"All performances that have been approved by the government after normal application procedures are still going on in Beijing and all the banned performances are those without government approval," she said.

China's Ministry of Culture has tightened the regulation on overseas performing troupes and issued a circular last week, stressing all the information on entertainers and programs should be submitted in advance for approval, encores included.

The new measures also apply to entertainers from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan.

Under the new rule, performers such as Icelandic singer Bjork, who stirred up controversy in March by chanting "Tibet" after singing the song "Declare Independence," would become persona non grata.

After the Bjork incident in Shanghai, the ministry said the act "broke Chinese law and hurt Chinese people's feelings."

Performances that "undermine national unity, endanger state security, stir up ethnic hatred, violate religious policy and ethnic customs, publicize pornography and superstition" would be barred, the circular said.

Nearly 700 square performances and 2,153 performances are to be staged in Ditan Park, Beijing's egg-shaped National Center for the Performing Arts and Poly Theater, among others, from July to September, with 157 foreign troupes joining the performance season.

(Xinhua News Agency July 23, 2008)