The Hashtag #2952 That Vanished Like Evaporation... What Happened on Chinese SNS?

Xi Jinping Re-elected Unanimously by 2,952 Votes
'#2952' Becomes a Banned Word as Criticism of the Regime

Recently, the hashtag '#2952', which criticizes the system, has reportedly been disappearing from social networking services (SNS) in China.

On the 16th (local time), Bloomberg News reported that this year, around the time of the National People's Congress (NPC), '#2952' became a term criticizing China's unanimous system.

Earlier, the NPC held a plenary session on the morning of the 10th and confirmed President Xi Jinping's third term. In the vote that day, President Xi received unanimous approval from all 2,952 NPC delegates present.

Afterwards, the hashtag '#2952' appeared on China's Weibo. It seems to indirectly criticize the situation where President Xi was elected unanimously.

Chinese President Xi Jinping is clapping at the 5th plenary session of the 1st meeting of the 14th National People's Congress (NPC) held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on the 12th.
[Image source=AFP Yonhap News]

President Xi first took office in 2013 at the NPC with 2,952 votes in favor, 1 against, and 3 abstentions, achieving a 99.86% approval rate. In 2018, during his second term, he was re-elected unanimously by 2,970 delegates attending the NPC vote.

On Freeweibo.com, a website run by Chinese dissidents, expressions mocking this situation appeared, calling it the "largest democratic voting movement."

However, the hashtag '#2952' suddenly vanished from SNS. The general view is that the "invisible hand," such as China's Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), pressured Weibo to remove it. Bloomberg reported that neither the CAC nor Weibo responded to inquiries about this.

In the past, search terms like Winnie the Pooh and Beijing were also blocked

Chinese President Xi Jinping. [Image source=Yonhap News]

Previously, ahead of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party in 2017, Chinese authorities blocked searches for the cartoon character 'Winnie the Pooh' on SNS. This was because comparisons mocking President Xi as Winnie the Pooh had become frequent. Winnie the Pooh is a character created by British author A.A. Milne in a fairy tale published in 1926.

The comparison of President Xi to Winnie the Pooh began in 2013 when a photo was released of him walking with then U.S. President Barack Obama during a visit to the United States. At that time, President Xi was depicted as Winnie the Pooh, and former President Obama as the tiger friend 'Tigger.'

Meanwhile, in October last year, Chinese authorities also blocked the search term 'Beijing,' the English spelling of the capital city. This was to prevent protests against President Xi from spreading at Sitongqiao (四通橋·Sitongqiao), located about 9 km northwest of Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.