China | Heading down a dangerous path

Xi Jinping has nurtured an ugly form of Chinese nationalism

It may prove hard to control

TOPSHOT - In this photo taken on September 4, 2020, a man walks with the Chinese national flag in a park next to the Yangtze River in Wuhan, China's central Hubei province. - China is recasting Wuhan as a heroic coronavirus victim and trying to throw doubt on the pandemic's origin story as it aims to seize the narrative at a time of growing global distrust of Beijing. - TO GO WITH AFP STORY HEALTH-VIRUS-CHINA-DIPLOMACY-WUHAN,FOCUS BY DAN MARTIN (Photo by Hector RETAMAL / AFP) / TO GO WITH AFP STORY HEALTH-VIRUS-CHINA-DIPLOMACY-WUHAN,FOCUS BY DAN MARTIN (Photo by HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP via Getty Images)

Jul 13th 2022

“Abe is dead and that’s it,” a social-media user called Zhang Beihai wrote to her 2.6m followers on Weibo, a Twitter-like platform. “He deserved to perish.” Another Weibo user went further: “His whole family deserves to die.” The assassination of Abe Shinzo, Japan’s former leader, on July 8th elicited a wave of joyous reactions online in China, where he was widely reviled. “News just in,” quipped one. “us President Kennedy meets Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo.”

This article appeared in the China section of the print edition under the headline “Heading down a dangerous path”