BEIJING (Bloomberg): A social media post by China’s top law enforcement body juxtaposing the country’s successful launch of a module into space with grim cremation pyres in India was deleted after it sparked online criticism in China.
by Bhaswati Guha Majumder - May 3, 2021 01:06 PM
The social media post in question
Snapshot
A post on Chinese social media site Weibo showed an image of a rocket launch in China, along with another image of the cremation ceremonies of Indiaâs Covid-19 victims.
The social media handle which posted the collage belonged to an official Chinese law enforcement agency.
The entire world knows that India has been facing an unprecedented surge in Covid-19 cases and the country is trying to control the current situation.
At a time when nations like the United States, United Kingdom and Russia are sending medical supplies to support India during this crisis, an especially insensitive image appeared on a popular Chinese social media site.
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A social media post by China’s top law enforcement body juxtaposing the country’s successful launch of a module into space with grim cremation pyres in India was deleted after it sparked online criticism in China.
Photos of the Tianhe module launch and its fuel burn-off were compared with what appeared to be a mass outdoor cremation in India, and captioned “China lighting a fire versus India lighting a fire.” The post on Saturday by the Communist Party’s Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission on its official Sina Weibo account was accompanied by a hashtag noting that new Covid-19 cases in India had surpassed 400,000 a day.
China Mocks India’s Coronavirus Dead on Social Media
3 May 2021
A social media account run by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) mocked India’s deadly coronavirus crisis on Saturday with a post deleted after public outrage in both China and India.
The now-deleted post, depicted below, emanated from the CCP’s Commission for Political and Legal Affairs (CPLA) – one of the most powerful organs of the Party, as it oversees the legal system and law enforcement agencies. The commission’s account on Weibo, China’s tightly-controlled version of Twitter, has 15 million followers. The post was shared by numerous other government and law enforcement social media accounts before it was deleted.