Miming at "live" performances in China could be banned from next year, the country's ministry of culture has announced.

Singers who lip-synch or musicians who only pretend to play their instruments face having their business licences revoked, an official warned.

But only professional performers will be covered. That will presumably mean that the country's most celebrated case of faking it - at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics this summer - would be exempt.

Nine-year-old Lin Miaoke was lauded around the world for her performance of Ode to the Motherland at the event. But it later emerged that she was miming to a recording made by Yang Peiyi, aged 7. Officials replaced the younger girl because they judged Lin more photogenic.

Sun Qiuxia, from the culture ministry's market management department, said it would consult with the public over the next few weeks, before agreeing final details of new rules on commercial performances.

Under the proposed regulations, individuals or organisations caught miming twice or more in a two-year period would have their business licences revoked.

Zheng Jun, a singer who became famous in the late Eighties, told the Shanghai-based paper Noon News that less than 20% of stars actually sang at their "live" shows.

"I really don't know what sort of an industry I'm involved in," he added. "I once met a well-known singer at a gala show who didn't even recognise his song as it was playing, because it had been so long since he'd truly performed it."

The new rules will also ban performers from accepting money for charity events. They state that all earnings, after the deduction of costs, should go to good causes.