CHINA NOT CRACKING DOWN ON HOUSE OF CARDS — YET

Despite the fact that the latest season of House of Cards includes a storyline that paints Chinese officials, businessmen, and diplomats unflatteringly (in one scene Vice President Frank Underwood, played by Kevin Spacey, tells a corrupt Chinese businessman, “Mao is dead, and so is his China”), the series is being streamed in China without interference from censors — so far, the Wall Street Journal reported today (Wednesday). It’s being offered online free — although it includes advertisements — via Sohu.com, whose chairman and CEO, Charles Zhang, told the Journal, “When we chose to purchase the rights to the show, we didn’t expect that the second season would have so much to do with China.” He said that over the weekend, House of Cards was the most-watched U.S. program on Sohu, surpassing The Big Bang Theory, one of the most popular U.S. shows in China.