Chinese President Xi Jinping
(Picture: getty)A Chinese journalist was forced to remove his poem about the “fat heads and big ears” of an insect when his employers feared it could be a slur against president Xi Jinping.
Xuan Kejiong, the reporter who works for the Shanghai Media Group, shared his work about cicadas on Weibo - a social media site where he has 1.6million followers.
He complained of the insects “crawling out of the dark,” but said his work was an “ode to summer,” inspired by his experiences of running in the heat, rather than a pop at Mr Xi.
The poem was widely shared online and after half an hour of it being available the Shanghai Media Group was inundated by inquiries as to "what he really meant".
The media group said: “The Shanghai Media Group has solemnly criticised the reporter Xuan Kejiong, who realises his mistake... his personal reflections could be easily subject to creative association by others.”
Mr Xi has been notoriously sensitive about his image and in 2018 the film Christopher Robin was banned in China after widespread lookalike comparisons with Winnie the Pooh. This was made firstly in 2013 when a still from his meeting with Barack Obama was likened to a tubby Pooh walking with gangly Tigger. Then in 2014, Shinzo Abe was likened to a depressed Eeyore shaking hands with Pooh.
At the time, Beijing said the memes were “a serious effort to undermine the dignity of the presidential office and Xi himself”.
