Morning Clicks | CCTV news presenter takes on China's radical left

Neo-Maoist leader and Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics professor Han Deqiang, who assaulted an elderly man earlier this month for criticising Mao Zedong, has become a vehicle for antagonism toward excess patriotism that has spread widely following recent anti-Japanese mob violence.

Han became even more of a target after he took to Sina Weibo to defend his assault, saying he'd do it again even if it lead to his arrest. Han is one of several high-profile opinion leaders from China's far left who have found some audience on Sina's microblogging platform.

The latest development has Han under the harsh glare of popular CCTV news anchor Bai Yansong, who called Han out by name on his news program Wednesday and came close to calling for legal action to be taken against Han as well as implying that Han deserves to lose his job for conduct unbefitting a professor alone.

Han's peers have predictably ratcheted up the radicalness in response to Bai's criticism (Bai has long been on their 'race traitor hit list' of people to execute or imprison), flinging the "race traitor" label all the way up to the Xinhua News Agency, CCTV, and the People's Daily and China Youth Daily newspapers.

Not only are these and other mainstream media outlets now being cast as anti-Communist, but the insiduous spread of "traitor culture" has even been blamed by Minzu University of China professor Zhang Hongliang on their growing numbers of female employees.