Too fast to censor: How online rage is turning on China’s elites

(Edited and refined by Josephine Hong and Candice Chan, with the assistance of AI translation.)

The first half of 2026 has been marked by a succession of headline-grabbing geopolitical events, with little sign of the pace letting up. Two days after the US celebrated the 250th anniversary of its independence, China launched what is widely believed to be a JL-3 submarine-launched intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on 6 July. The missile reportedly flew some 8,000 kilometres, passing high above Japan before splashing down in the South Pacific, drawing criticism and concern from Japan, Australia, New Zealand and the US.

Unexpected fodder for cyber uproar

While missile tests by the People’s Liberation Army are not uncommon, this marks the first time China publicly announced an ICBM launch from a nuclear submarine. Launching it at such a sensitive juncture naturally invites speculation about the intended signal. Was it a belated birthday gift to the USA, a deterrent against strengthening defence cooperation between Australia and Fiji, or a warning to Japan ahead of the anniversary of the 7 July Lugou Bridge Incident? Perhaps it was a bit of all three.

Also this week, US President Donald Trump triggered global uproar by confirming that he phoned in to intervene in a World Cup red card ruling, successfully suspending the ban on a US forward player. Taiwanese commentators playfully quipped that Trump has engineered “a one-man World Cup” and “a one-man Independence Day” — demonstrating that no matter how monumental the event, Trump always manages to steal the show.

The headlines have not been confined to international affairs. Within China, a different kind of drama has been playing out online. With more than 1.1 billion internet users, the country is no stranger to an endless stream of internet controversies, many of them bizarre. But several recent incidents have been striking for the ferocity of the backlash over what can hardly be described as major offences.

The first involved Chinese singer Han Hong. On 17 June, Han, who has spent more than two decades engaged in charitable work and has long enjoyed a positive public image, attended the Beijing premiere of director Feng Xiaogang’s new film I Know Who You Are. During the event, she appealed to Beijing audiences, addressing them in colloquial terms as “brothers, sisters, guys and gals”, and saying, “Give us some face! Let’s get the first wave of box office numbers moving.”

Unexpectedly, this casual, colloquial expression to “give face” provoked fierce backlash. Netizens slammed Han and Feng as multi-millionaire elites and questioned why ordinary working-class “cattle and horses” (slang for exploited labourers) should part with their hard-earned money just to give them “face”. Others fiercely criticised the entertainment industry for expecting the public to foot the bill for subpar films, denouncing it as “moral coercion”.

The online storm quickly spread to Han’s charitable work. Some people claiming to have supported her for years announced that they would stop making monthly donations to the Han Hong Love Charity Foundation. There were even reports that Han had considered withdrawing from charity work altogether. On 30 June, she publicly apologised, promising to be more careful with her words in future.

China embassy in India under fire

If the cyberbullying of Han reflects netizens venting their frustrations against the wealthy and elite, the deluge of derogatory comments and videos targeting Indians on Chinese social media — which culminated in the online abuse of China’s ambassador to India, Xu Feihong — is utterly baffling.

Following years of frosty relations, China-India ties underwent a reboot in 2024, marked by a pivotal meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Kazan, Russia, that October. By April 2025, Xu revealed in an interview with The Times of India that Beijing was actively working to enhance bilateral exchanges. He noted that Chinese diplomatic missions in India issued 280,000 visas in 2024, and over 85,000 in the first four months of 2025. Xu also candidly acknowledged that it remained difficult for Chinese citizens to secure Indian visas.

Promoting the development of bilateral relations and advancing people-to-people exchanges are, after all, core responsibilities of diplomats stationed overseas. Yet China’s embassy in India has unexpectedly come under fire from Chinese netizens, accused of “handing out visas indiscriminately”, while Xu himself was called out as a “traitor”.

The article went on to urge the Chinese public to take a broader, long-term view of relations with India. Whether from the perspective of history, present-day realities or the current international order, it argued, China and India must coexist peacefully and pursue mutually beneficial cooperation. It also bluntly criticised those who relish posting online about bizarre or sensational incidents from India and other South Asian countries while exaggerating the alleged “misdeeds” of Indians in China, resulting in many Chinese people developing a fragmented, stereotyped and overly simplistic understanding of India.

Such posts may appear to be patriotic expressions, the article said, but in reality they are designed to generate traffic and attract attention by promoting confrontation and xenophobia. At their core, they exploit patriotic sentiment and national feeling, polluting the online environment while falling far short of the open and confident mindset expected of a major power.

Patriotism for clicks

It appears that even the Chinese authorities cannot stand the disparaging rhetoric directed at Indians on Chinese social media. So where is the online hostility, xenophobia and rancour coming from? Communications theory has long provided ample explanations.

In the “post-truth” era, emotions and preconceptions often take precedence over objective facts. Meanwhile, the close alignment of traffic-driven business models, recommendation algorithms and the pursuit of profit has made rational, fact-based content seem too costly to produce and insufficiently engaging to attract an audience.

At the same time, the sharp decline in the cost and technical barriers to content creation has made it easy to mass-produce and disseminate one-sided, emotionally charged information to social media users. In China’s context, many bloggers who wave the seemingly righteous banner of “patriotism” also play a distinctive role in amplifying these trends.

The tragedy is that, across the world, social media has become the primary source of information for many people. Yet the discourse on these platforms is invariably a mixed bag, rife with misinformation and unsavoury content, and this is by no means unique to China. What makes China’s situation unique is that its traditional mainstream media have continued to lose influence and reach while being pushed to invest more heavily in social media.

While China’s internet remains a tightly regulated space, with the authorities regularly launching “cleanup” campaigns (清朗行动) to suppress and censor content on selected topics, it has also developed an exceptionally sophisticated attention economy, where online traffic is readily monetised, enabling populist topics to gain traction with remarkable speed.

This is an increasingly risky trend. If left unchecked, social media could outpace governance itself, allowing online sentiment to spread, shape public opinion and influence the broader social climate before regulators are able to intervene. While many such incidents may prove to be little more than passing online controversies, it would be a mistake to dismiss the possibility that some could escalate into far more serious problems.

This article was first published in Lianhe Zaobao as “鼓噪又充满戾气的网络空间”.

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