‘Islamic State’ killings: China’s censored social media is in uproar, so what’s Beijing thinking?
The deaths of two Chinese prompt widespread calls for retribution. Beijing, seeking favour in the region with its Belt and Road Initiative, remains curiously silent
As Beijing scrambles to befriend neighbouring countries and ease anxieties over its rising military power, social media users are demanding their government send troops to Pakistan to seek payback for the killing of two Chinese nationals.
Calls for action were stoked after Islamic State (IS), a terrorist group active in Iraq and Syria, claimed responsibility for executing a young man and woman last week in Pakistan. Chinese officials have yet to directly confirm the deaths, but a spokesman from the Chinese foreign affairs ministry said on Wednesday that Beijing was investigating whether the pair – described in some reports as Chinese language teachers – were illegally preaching in Pakistan before they were abducted. In an earlier press conference, the ministry said it had been told by Pakistan that the pair had “probably died”.
The two Chinese nationals, Lee Zing Yang, 24, and Meng Li Si, 26, were kidnapped by IS members at gunpoint last month in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province. Beijing vowed to rescue them, and Pakistan responded by launching a raid on IS positions that officials said successfully killed several militant commanders, but failed to find the pair.
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News of their death has generated a cascade of discussion on Weibo, a Twitter-style Chinese social media platform, with many users calling for revenge.
“We shall start a war against IS, killing them on behalf of the two murdered Chinese,” said a user going by the name Zhou Qi Bei Hou.
“It is time to fight violence with violence,” another user, Lingchen99096, said.
Beijing tends to restrict such content from going online, but tens of thousands of comments regarding the atrocity remain.