NewChinese reporter admits being duped 30 years ago by 'April fool' on US cadets idolising Lei Feng

A former Chinese journalist has admitted – 30 years late – to falling for an April Fool’s joke that cadets at the West Point US military academy studied the example of Communist hero Lei Feng.

Li Zhurun, a former reporter for China’s official Xinhua news agency who is now a university professor, made the confession on his Sina Weibo microblog.

In his posting, Li said that he had been duped by an unspecified Western news outlet, which reported on April Fool’s Day 1981 that the elite institution in New York state had held up the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) soldier as an example for all students.

“I was young at the time, and I didn’t know that Western media often invent news on April Fool’s Day,” Li wrote.

The state-run China Daily newspaper on Tuesday identified the Western outlet as the United Press International agency, but it was not clear where Li was based at the time, or who he wrote the story for.

Ever since Communist China’s supreme leader Mao Zedong recognised Lei Feng for his humble heroism, said to include washing his comrades’ uniforms and giving his pay to the needy, authorities have encouraged citizens to do good and follow his example.

Over the past three decades, the West Point myth has become so entrenched in China that even a member of the country’s advisory discussion body, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), cited it in a 2009 proposal urging Beijing to apply for UNESCO recognition of the “Lei Feng Spirit”.