Banned by Beijing, this comedian is taking his act to Chinese speakers abroad

When one of China’s biggest stand-up comedians opened his show with a joke about the extraordinarily long rule of the country’s leader Xi Jinping, it drew a cheer, alongside a smattering of approving profanities. “This is fire,” a man shouted in Mandarin. Few in China would dare to joke about Xi, who has increasingly centralised power in his nearly 15 years in office. But this was the National University of Singapore, where hundreds had packed into the auditorium, mostly Singaporean Chinese and those who had moved or were visiting from China. And the young man on stage, Chizi, knew the…