Chinese whispers prompt censors to ban term ‘back injury’ from Weibo
Chinese government censors are working overtime to suppress speculation surrounding the health, whereabouts and future of the man soon to be anointed as the country’s new leader.
Vice-president Xi Jinping has been AWOL for over ten days, cancelling a string of official engagements without explanation.
This absence of any official comment has stoked a series of rumours, the most likely of which suggesting that the leader in waiting may have sprained his back whilst swimming.
Attempting to quell chatter around the succession government officials have also moved to ban the terms ‘vice president’ and ‘crown prince’ from discussion.
Steve Tsang, director of the China Policy Institute at the University of Nottingham told The Times: “There is almost very little to the Xi story. It probably just happens that he has fallen ill at a politically important time. But the authorities always manage everything so opaquely and have chosen to do so again.
“Now they don’t know how to stop the rumours because they don’t know how to stop concealing the truth.”