China reporter cyberbullied over Abe tears in reported suicide attempt

Zeng Ying’s fate is unknown but an apparent suicide note was shared by her friend after a week of social media attacks

The Tokyo-based journalist was blasted by Chinese nationalists for breaking down during a live-stream report of Shinzo Abe’s assassination

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Zeng Ying was bombarded with hostile comments online. Photo: Baidu

Published: 11:43am, 22 Jul 2022Updated: 8:51pm, 22 Jul 2022

Corrected [8:48pm, 22 Jul, 2022]

[8:48pm, 22 Jul, 2022]
The story was initially published with a picture of Chen Lan that was wrongly captioned as being her friend Zeng Ying. The image has since been changed.

A Chinese freelance journalist and influencer based in Japan has apparently attempted to take her own life after she was cyberbullied for her sympathetic reporting of the death of former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe.

Zeng Ying’s status is unknown but her secretary from DDBK, the Tokyo-based company she founded, did not deny reports of an attempted suicide and said on Thursday Zeng had been in deep “physical and psychological pain”.

On Tuesday Chen Lan, a well-known writer and friend of Zeng’s, shared an alleged suicide note from the reporter on her verified Weibo social media account. According to the note – which Chen said had been posted on her friend’s WeChat – Zeng had experienced depression since 2018 and from the beginning of July felt she could no longer deal with regular work and life.

For more than a week Zeng had been the target of widespread cyberbullying by nationalist Chinese, following her live-stream reporting on July 8 for Shanghai’s online media outlet The Paper of Abe’s assassination during an election speech in Nara.

While recounting how beneficial Abe’s policies had been for Japanese citizens and his contributions to China-Japan relations, Zeng paused and sobbed. She was immediately attacked on social media. A Weibo hashtag titled “Zeng Ying cries for Shinzo Abe while live-streaming” was read more than 800,000 times.

Some online commenters called for her to “go after Abe” as she seemed sad about his death. Others called her a traitor, asking “why should a Chinese cry for Abe?”