"China’s government banned effeminate men on TV.... Broadcasters must 'resolutely put an end to sissy men and other abnormal esthetics,' the National Radio and TV Administration said..."

"... using an insulting slang term for effeminate men — 'niang pao,' or literally, 'girlie guns.' That reflects official concern that Chinese pop stars, influenced by the sleek, fashionable look of some South Korean and Japanese singers and actors, are failing to encourage China’s young men to be masculine enough...."

AP reports.

The Wikipedia article "Niang pao" pointed me to "China’s Pop Idols Are Too Soft for the Party" (Foreign Policy, 2018)...

Smooth-skinned, slim-figured, and impeccably coiffed, the young male idols referred to colloquially as xiao xian rou (“little fresh meat”) have come to dominate the Chinese pop cultural landscape over the last decade.

... and "CIA turned our celebrities into ‘sissy pants’, says Chinese Academy of Social Sciences" (London Times, 2019): 

Beijing has accused the CIA of secretly fuelling the trend for effeminate or “sissy” celebrities in China.... A Cass report accuses the CIA of beginning its campaign to “brainwash” Asian men in Japan in 1962 with the foundation of the Johnny & Associates talent agency. It claims the agency’s founder, Johnny Kitagawa, was “loyal to the Americans rather than the Japanese” and colluded with the CIA to use “entertainment to brainwash the Japanese people . . . to weaken the male temperament of Japanese society”. 

Since then, the Chinese report, titled “Do you know how hard the CIA is working”, says, weakened male temperament has spread to other parts of east Asia. Beijing’s experts compared China’s entertainment industry, which “advocates feminine male artists”, to Hollywood, where “male stars are not like this, most of them are tough guys”. 

The biggest celebrities in mainland China often are imported from the K-Pop industry in South Korea.... An editorial in the state-run Xinhua news agency derided xiao xian rou as “sissy boys” unfit for the task of “helping our nation reach its renaissance”. 

Last year, Xinhua, the state news agency, lambasted singers in a new group, New F4, as “sissy pants” and said they were “not men, but not women”. “They look androgynous and wear make-up. They are slender and weak,” the influential opinion columnist using the pen name Xinshiping wrote. “The impact this sick culture will have on our young generation is immeasurable.”