Array
A top Chinese government propagandist, former Global Times editor Hu Xijin, lamented the censorship of a deadly fire at a Beijing hospital this week, then rapidly deleted his social media post and replaced it with an innocuous post calling for police to investigate the incident.
Hu Xijin ran the Global Times, the Chinese Communist Party’s most belligerent English-language propaganda newspaper, as editor-in-chief before abruptly “retiring” in late 2021.
At the time, his newspaper had taken the lead in responding to the outrage surrounding the disappearance of tennis champion Peng Shuai, who had accused a top Communist Party official of rape and vanished from the public eye. The Global Times published staged videos of her allegedly dining in public that exacerbated global disgust and preceded the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) announcing it would no longer host tournaments in China (the WTA ended the boycott this month).
Hu remains on the staff of the Global Times as a commentator, publishing a video series titled “Hu Says.” His latest commentary condemns American law enforcement authorities for shutting down an illegal Chinese police station used to repress political dissidents in New York City.
Hu’s recent censorship — or self-censorship — followed news surfacing of a fire at Beijing’s ChangFeng hospital on Tuesday afternoon. Information about the fire, including shocking videos of patients climbing out of hospital windows to avoid burning to death, began circulating on the Chinese state-controlled social media site Weibo on Tuesday, but users found that censors rapidly deleted the videos.
Video that has been deleted off WeChat shows the back of the Beijing Changfeng Hospital. Patients climbing down from ropes made of sheets, others perched on AC compressors. pic.twitter.com/77dHCqyGJX
Elizabeth Law 思敏 (@lizzlaw_) April 18, 2023
【北京长峰医院发生火灾】#北京长峰医院 住院部东楼中午发生火情，21人丧生，转移患者71人。有病人通过床单从窗户跳出，也有人躲在空调外机上，非常危险。医院官网2月27日的文章显示该医院一个多月前曾召开火灾防控部署会。 pic.
