A CNN correspondent covering President Obama’s trip to Asia was detained by Chinese authorities in Shanghai for showing on camera a T-shirt portraying Obama as Mao Zedong.

The shirt features Obama in a Red Army uniform gazing into the distance in a pose reminiscent of Mao, the late Communist leader.

Chinese characters on the front of the shirt spell out the words, “Serve the People."  The back of the shirt features the word “Oba-Mao” in English.

Emily Chang, a Beijing-based correspondent for CNN, said she found the shirt precisely because she’d heard that they were being confiscated lest they offend Obama.

"Two security guards happened to pass by at the moment I announced to the camera: 'This is the T-shirt everybody is talking about,'" she said in a CNN blog posting.

"And that was it. They scrambled towards us and tried to pry the shirt out of my hands," Chang said. "I didn't give in.

"There was a bit of yelling and quite a scuffle…We ended up being detained for two hours in the cold, maze of a market … crowd gathered round. More security and then police showed up.

"They wanted our press cards, our passports, but most of all, they wanted the shirt," she said. "Finally, they let us go. Phew!"