Xi Jinping was given the middle finger during his visit to Vietnam
On December 12, 2023, China's top leader Xi Jinping arrived in Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam, by special plane for a two-day state visit to Vietnam. This was Xi Jinping's second visit to Vietnam after six years. According to Reuters, during Xi Jinping's visit to Vietnam, the two countries signed a total of 37 cooperation agreements, including a memorandum of understanding to strengthen the development of cross-border railways between China's Kunming and Vietnam's northern port of Haiphong. On the evening of December 13, Xi Jinping returned to China after successfully concluding his visit to Vietnam.
At noon on December 12, the CCTV news client released a video of a welcoming crowd at the airport. Sharp-eyed netizens noticed that a flashing "middle finger" appeared at the 12th second of the 34-second video: An on-site representative waving the Vietnamese flag seemed to raise his middle finger to Xi Jinping, Peng Liyuan and others who arrived.
The appearance of this picture may be just an accident, but it triggered ridicule from some netizens outside the wall, who believed that it was a deliberate humiliation of the welcoming people at the scene. Some netizens asked, "Is this a unique welcome gesture from Vietnam?", "Is it Comrade Li Keqiang?" A gesture?"
On May 28, 2020, Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Li Keqiang voted on the Hong Kong version of the National Security Law. They both pressed the yes button at the same time, but Li Keqiang extended his middle finger to vote.
According to CCTV reports, the welcoming crowd welcoming Xi Jinping and others at Vietnam’s Noi Bai International Airport were “more than 400 representatives from all walks of life in China and Vietnam”:
After these frames of "middle finger" scenes sparked heated discussions, netizens soon noticed that many websites that forwarded the original video had deleted relevant web pages: such as The Paper, Nanfang.com, China Youth Online, and Sichuan Views News, etc., it is suspected that the official issued a unified order. (The report is titled "The airport welcomes crowds to warmly welcome Xi Jinping's visit")
CCTV, which released the original video, did not take down the report. Instead, it cut the original 34-second video to 31 seconds and republished it. In the newly released video, the original "middle finger picture" at the 12th second position has disappeared.
Some netizens also mentioned this deletion. Judging from this series of official censorship reactions, it is undoubtedly a disguised recognition of the "malicious interpretation" of the "middle finger gesture" by netizens outside the wall.
