China Goes Pop; Mao Meets Muzak.

A little more than a year ago, China Culture Gazette, official organ of China's Ministry of Culture, was transformed. For years CCG had been an infamous stronghold of the hard-line apparatchiks, choking with dull, harsh Communist Party propaganda. With a new issue of its "Cultural Weekend" edition, the paper changed color overnight: from red to yellow. The picture did the trick. On that day, the four-page "Cultural Weekend" displayed many nude and half-nude photographs mostly of busty Western women in languidly seductive poses; instantly it became known as the coolest paper in Beijing. It also ran a front-page interview on the subject of nudity with Liu Xiaoqing, China's brash movie queen. The issue sold like hot cakes.