China Insight

The “Wild West” of Banking in China: Andrew Collier on China’s Shadow Banking

Shadow banking is a halfway house between state and private economics – its “the Wild West of banking in China.”

Published

9 years ago

March 30, 2017

In his upcoming book Shadow Banking and the Rise of Capitalism in China, Andrew Collier dives into the growth of ‘shadow banking’ in China and the emergence of a new aspect of capitalism in the PRC – a halfway house between state and private economics that he calls “the Wild West of banking in China.” What’s on Weibo reports.

“If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and acts like a duck, then it is a duck (..) But what about an institution that looks like a bank and acts like a bank? Often it is not a bank — it is a shadow bank.” This is how the concept of ‘shadow banking’ is straightforwardly explained by Laura Kodres in What Is Shadow Banking? The term was first coined in 2007 by economist Paul McCulley at a financial conference.

What does the growth of the free shadow banking market mean in a country that stresses “socialism with Chinese characteristics”? Collier discussed the status quo of shadow banking during a special event at The Bookworm, Beijing, on March 28.

Andrew Collier (@acollier) is an expert in China’s macro economy and the practice of shadow banking. He is the former President of the Bank of China International USA and is a business-focused journalist for, amongst others, the South China Morning Post. His book Shadow Banking and the Rise of Capitalism in China will come out in May 2017.

In simple terms, Andrew Collier explains shadow banking as “capital that is distributed outside the formal banking system” – which can be anything from small-scale lending shops to large-scale trust companies. That they are outside of the “formal” banking system usually means these channels lack a strong safety net and have a different (and lesser) regulatory oversight (Elliott et al 2015).

Although shadow banking only held a fraction of the Chinese economy in the early 2000s, its share in China’s current annual lending is more than substantial (nearly half of all China’s economy annual RMB 25 trillion / $4.1 trillion lending). Risky business? Yes. But since many companies do not have access to formal loans, the practice has become ubiquitous. Some reports also suggest it has an upside as it boosts economic growth by making financial services cheaper and more accessible.

On Sina Weibo, the topic of shadow banking (影子银行) has received a lot of attention lately, with some netizens expressing their worries about the phenomenon: “Shadow banking is becoming a chaos, there is an overflow of people lending money!”

Collier also reinforces this message at The Bookworm, where he shares his experiences with the ‘game’ of shadow banking in China; a messy business where one of the most important questions is: where does the money actually go?

“An enormous miniature park? I saw a lot of odd constructions everywhere – I looked around and I started to become very skeptical.”

Collier’s interest in China’s shadow banking started in the 2000s when he joined the Bank of China and went on many business trips within mainland China, during which he witnessed how huge amounts of money were being pumped into projects that were often dubious; sport stadiums that would only host one sports event in a year, or a miniature theme park spread over several acres of land.

“At the time it looked like a bit of a joke,” Collier says about his visit to the, ironically, enormous miniature theme park located in Sichuan province: “But it was not just this. Some investments might pay off in the end, but you would see a lot of odd constructions everywhere – and I looked around and I started to become very skeptical.”

Andrew Collier at the Bookworm, March 28.

His ample experience with China’s world of ‘alternative’ banking over the past decades fascinated him so much that he decided to dive into the topic, with the main focus on simply following the money – tracking where it is coming from and where is it going.

But the issue turned out to be not that simple, as many people did not even know what it was they were investing in (“Some kind of bridge somewhere,” one investor once responded to Collier.) Within a few years after Collier’s interest was ignited, the term ‘shadow banking’ first popped up.

“What actually is ‘shadow banking’?”, Collier wondered, and asked himself: “Is it a good or a bad thing for China?”

It turns out that a lot of the important data about shadow banking is simply not there. What ‘shadow banking’ actually means also strongly varies per country and system.

Collier stresses that what is now happening within China is not really the same as what happened at Wall Street in the 1990s, when there were huge amounts of retirement money in the financial system and banks took bad property loans and “put lipstick on a pig” in selling their mortgage products.

Despite all the lingering questions, one thing is crystal clear: shadow banking is big in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Even if China’s leadership would not necessarily call it ‘capitalism’ (rather: “capitalism with Chinese characteristics”), Collier wonders if shadow banking is the tail that’s gonna wag the dog, with many things happening that might be dangerous for the Chinese economy.

“Few people actually know where the money goes and nobody cares. They’re taking a slice of something and have no idea what it means.”

So what is actually happening in China, if it is not the “putting lipstick on pigs” phenomenon of 1990s Wall Street? After China’s 2008/2009 economic stimulus, there has been a lot of money flowing through the system. But China’s ‘shadow banking’ was not necessarily a result of that, Collier argues, as it was going on ever since he first lived in China in the 1980s and saw how people were borrowing money from friends and relatives for grain and cotton – actually also a form of shadow banking.

Throughout the years, especially over the past decade, China has seen a huge growth of non-state lending from ‘mom and pop loans’ to huge state-owned bank trusts. It is a problem that mainly stems from a system that was not designed to handle so much cash and was under very limited control.

Collier explains shadow banking as an overflow of water that is trying to find new channels within the PRC, with capital flows going outside of the banking system – through land sales or by borrowing from private markets. Non-bank channels don’t only have lower requirements for capital and liquidity, they also do not have the same low limits on interest rates as formal banks.

In the 1998-2012 period, shadow banking had actually become so big that there was an 18 trillion RMB gap in local government revenues, of which shadow banking was a large part: “Basically it is an unsustainable financial system,” Collier says, with institutions scrambling to either lend the money or to receive it.

According to Collier, there are two main actors that play the main role in the shadow banking ‘game’; Trusts and Wealth Management Products (WMP). WMP are uninsured financial products that often have a high rate of interest. Trusts are basically “banks in disguise with hardly any regulatory oversight,” as Collier says.

“They are, in fact, regulated – but so lightly that western observers will call them shadow banks. They tend to have government (provincial) ownership, and have trillions of outstanding loans.”

Some years ago Collier met with a person from a renowned oil company, who said his job was “managing money.” Upon further talking, Collier realized this person was managing billions and was basically running his own bank; a new reality in present-day China.

A big problem that Collier repeats throughout his talk is that it is not just that important data is missing on shadow banking in China, or that few people actually know where the money goes, but that “nobody cares and everyone thinks it’s all fine; they’re taking a slice of something and have no idea what it means.”

“Socialism has become nothing more but a national ideology.”

Collier stresses that China’s shadow banking is all about different actors who are halfway in the middle: it is not about state versus private. In China, it is all about partly state-owned parties versus partly private actors.

The upcoming book and Collier’s Bookworm talk come at a time when China is cracking down on shadow banking.

The crackdown is part of the balance that is kept on shadow banking within China, as the central bank of the PRC does not want pressures to get out of control and attempts to minimize risks.

Experts tell Bloomberg that there is a possibility that the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) will directly inject funds into smaller banks if cash shortage continues.

When Collier asks the audience at The Bookworm to raise their hand if they think the system is going to collapse within the coming 5 years, nobody raises their hand. Apparently, many people don’t worry too much about the negative effects of shadow banking on China’s financial system in the years to come.

On Weibo, many netizens are more skeptical, not just because of the risks involved in shadow banking, but also of what it means in China today.

One commenter says: “In fact, China is not socialist at all when it comes to economics. Right now, it is actually a capitalist country – socialism has become nothing more than a national ideology.”

– By Manya Koetse
Follow @WhatsOnWeibo

Sources and further reading

Collier, Andrew. 2017. “Shadow Banking and the Rise of Capitalism in China.” Palgrave Macmillan.

Elliott, Douglas, Arthur Kroeber and Yu Qiao. 2015. “Shadow Banking in China: a Primer.” Economic Studies, the Brookings Institution.

Kodres, Laura E. 2013. “What Is Shadow Banking?” International Monetary Fund (50/2): June https://www.springer.com/us/book/9789811029950#aboutBook [28.3.17].

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Manya Koetse

Manya Koetse is a sinologist, writer, and public speaker specializing in China’s social trends, digital culture, and online media ecosystems. She founded What’s on Weibo in 2013 and now runs the Eye on Digital China newsletter. Learn more at manyakoetse.com or follow her on X, Instagram, or LinkedIn.

China Insight

“Even Pigs Have AC”: The European Heatwave Through Chinese Eyes

As Europe struggles through record heat, Chinese social media is turning the story into something much bigger than the weather. Plus: the graduation speech everyone is talking about & more.

Published

2 weeks ago

July 5, 2026

Manya Koetse

🔥 China Trend Watch (week 26/27 | 2026) Part of Eye on Digital China, this is my premium newsletter where I explain the stories, memes, debates, and viral moments shaping online conversations in China. This edition was sent to paid subscribers — subscribe to receive the next issue in your inbox.

Here’s your weekly update on what’s been trending. In case you missed it, earlier this week I published a deep dive into the CITIC Tower plane crash and how its immediate aftermath was handled online. In this newsletter: Louis Vuitton’s victory in a noteworthy trademark case against a Chinese tea brand; how and why the European heatwave has become a major topic in China; a controversial gaming character; and an inspiring must-know phrase of the week.

🗞️ QUICK SCROLLS

🍉 Don’t buy precut watermelons. During these hot days, watermelons are a popular snack, but this stern warning went viral: avoid pre-cut watermelons sold by roadside vendors, as they’re a potential health hazard due to improper refrigeration and cross-contamination from cutting surfaces and knives —you have no idea what else they’ve been used for 😬.

🇯🇵 China blames Japan for ties hitting a new low. During a July 1st press briefing, China’s Foreign Ministry said Sino-Japanese relations are facing “severe difficulties,” blaming Tokyo’s stance on Taiwan and security issues. The remarks come amid renewed tensions, including Japan’s announcement that multiple Chinese naval vessels had transited waters near the country and the reported formal arrest of a Japanese citizen detained in Dalian.

🌾 No messing around with China’s heroes. A Chinese agricultural influencer with over 2 million followers has been permanently banned from Douyin after posting negative remarks about the hybrid rice breeding technology developed by the late Yuan Longping (袁隆平), China’s national hero and “Father of Hybrid Rice,” widely praised for his role in combating poverty and hunger.

🛎️ The 24-hour checkout as a new hotel standard? Check in at 3 pm, check out at 3 pm the next day—that’s the idea behind a viral checkout policy introduced by the Chinese hotel chain Qinzhu Hotel (沁住酒店). The policy breaks with the long-standing industry practice of requiring guests to check out before noon. Instead, checkout is calculated from the guest’s actual check-in time, allowing them to stay for a full 24 hours before checking out. The policy is generating discussions, with many wondering if this could point towards changing policies in the broader industry.

🎖️ The Party turns 105. July 1 marked the 105th founding anniversary of the Communist Party, an occasion heavily promoted across Chinese social media as eight Party members received the “July 1 Medal” (七一勋章), the Party’s highest honor. Among them was Henan village Party secretary Li Liancheng (李连成), who transformed a poor village into a model of rural development. July 1 also marks 29 years since Hong Kong’s return to Chinese sovereignty in 1997.

📅 Interesting fact: July 1 is not the Communist Party’s actual founding date. The 1st National Congress opened in Shanghai on July 23, 1921. The Party settled on July 1 as its anniversary in 1938 only because the Yan’an-based delegates who had attended the congress, including Mao Zedong and Dong Biwu, could remember that it had taken place in July, but not the exact day (and wartime conditions made archival verification difficult).

🌸 Whose flower is it anyway? The French luxury house Louis Vuitton won a first-instance trademark infringement case against the new Chinese tea chain Molly Tea (茉莉奶白) this week. The Chinese brand was sued over the four-petal flower symbol in its logo, similar to LV’s core floral element. But many netizens disagree with the judge’s decision, arguing that the flower can be traced to the iconic Baoxianghua (宝相花) motif that flourished during the Tang Dynasty (618-907).

👁️ WHAT STOOD OUT

Nationalism, Soft Power, and the European Heatwave in China

AI-generated images posted on Chinese social media showing Europeans suffering in the heat while Chinese pigs are relaxing with cool units (left) and Chinese manufacturers selling out (right).

The high temperatures in Europe have become a hot topic in China, where the heatwave across France, Belgium, Germany, and other countries has been one of the biggest international stories of the past two weeks, with China cast in a particularly prominent role.

In China, the European heatwave, with temperatures reaching 40–45°C and causing deaths across several countries, is discussed from various angles and is also used to make broader geopolitical, economic, and ideological points about Europe and China-EU relations. These are the three dominant ways in which the heatwave is currently being discussed on Chinese social media:

🌡️ 1. “China Is Keeping Europe Cool”: European Heat Through the Lens of Chinese Soft Power and Anti-”De-Risking” Narratives

Chinese state media have framed the European heatwave by emphasizing the role of Chinese-made air conditioners. In countries such as Spain, Germany, and France, air-conditioner sales have nearly doubled compared to last year, with Chinese manufacturers such as Haier and Midea reporting sales increases of up to 70% while ramping up production to meet demand.

A main narrative is that China is helping Europe by meeting demand at a critical time. A similar narrative emerged during the 2022 energy crisis, when Chinese media emphasized how made-in-China products, from blankets to heaters, were keeping Europeans warm.

As a recent Xinhua commentary argued, the current shortage demonstrates that Chinese manufacturers are filling a gap where European companies are falling short. While Europe increasingly frames China-EU trade in terms of “de-risking,” the article argues that Chinese manufacturing actually provides resilience during times of crisis and should therefore be seen as an asset rather than a risk.

🌡️ 2. “Even Pigs Have Air Conditioning in China”: Schadenfreude and Nationalism

The heatwave story and the fact that most European homes do not have air conditioning have also been met with ridicule and disbelief on Chinese social media, where one recurring joke is that while Europeans are suffering through extreme heat, even pigs have air conditioning in China.

The story partly originated on Chinese social media but was also fueled by posts on X. Around June 24, one tweet showing Chinese pigsties equipped with air conditioners received thousands of likes.

Chinese netizens also had plenty of banter over other X posts in which Europeans proudly showed off their newly purchased air conditioners, as though they had just discovered a new technology. For many Chinese commenters, it is simply unimaginable that air conditioning is still considered a luxury in much of Europe.

A local Hai’er account on Xiaohongshu joked:

💬 “Europeans spend hundreds of euros on an AC and still have to check the regulations; we spend a few thousand yuan (…) and enjoy wrapping ourselves in a quilt while eating watermelon in the middle of summer.”

A recurring theme in these discussions is that China once admired Western technology and modernity, whereas today the roles seem reversed. Now, some commenters say, Europeans are marveling at Chinese-made air conditioners. As one Weibo wrote: “It’s like our ancestors when they first saw cars.”

🌡️ 3. Europe Is Putting Climate Policy Ahead of Ordinary People: Criticism of EU Governance

Another dominant theme is the idea that Europe has become hypocritical—or excessively “politically correct”—in its environmental policies. Many commenters argue that the low prevalence of air conditioning in European homes is partly the result of regulators’ longstanding skepticism toward air conditioning on environmental grounds.

This has fueled the narrative, amplified by Chinese media this month, that Europeans are now suffering and even dying during heatwaves because green ideology has stigmatized air conditioning.

At the same time, many users mock what they see as the EU’s willingness to criticize other countries over greenhouse gas emissions while failing to protect its own citizens from extreme heat.

One AI-generated meme showed crying polar bears, monkeys, and penguins alongside the slogan:”Save nature! Save the animals! Oppose Europe installing air conditioning—this is a betrayal of Mother Nature.” One of the meme’s posters wrote on Weibo:

💬 “Europeans have been preaching the gospel of environmentalism (环保圣经). Now, it’s finally coming back to bite them.”

Another depicted Ursula von der Leyen relaxing beneath a powerful Midea air conditioner, comfortably enjoying the very equipment that her policies supposedly discourage.

All in all, for some, the debate over air conditioning is about something much bigger. The lack of air conditioning in many European countries—along with the regulations, infrastructure constraints, and electricity costs surrounding it—has become symbolic of a broader reassessment of Europe. For some Chinese netizens, it challenges the long-held idea that life in Europe is necessarily better or more idyllic than life in China.

One netizen even advised fellow Chinese against emigrating to Europe:

💬 “Over the next five to ten years, I think people in China will become much more clear-eyed, and many existing illusions about Europe will gradually disappear.”

📱ON THE FEEDS

**No More Werewolves in the Love and Deepspace House**

The Chinese mobile game Love and Deepspace (恋与深空) has been all over the feeds, with some Weibo discussions garnering nearly half a billion views after the game was hit by controversy.

The game, developed by Papergames, is a so-called otome game — a story-based romance video game aimed primarily at women. Recently, a new male character lead was introduced: Ao Yin (敖尹, English name: Valk0), introduced as a werewolf, who breaks into the home of a woman living alone as part of a romantic scenario, after which he says: “What’s wrong with inviting the wolf into the house?” (引狼入室有什么不好) — a line critics say romanticizes non-consensual home intrusion.

What also sparked outrage was a reference to an “A-0731” file number tied to an in-game human drug-trial dossier. Players connected “0731” to Unit 731, the biological and chemical weapons program operated by the Japanese Army in China during the Second Sino-Japanese War/WWII.

The developers apologized, and for now, Ao Yin is canceled entirely — no more werewolves coming in the house.

🀄 ONLINE PHRASE OF THE WEEK

“Move forward firmly amid the noise”

在众声喧哗中坚定前行 (zài zhòngshēng xuānhuá zhōng jiāndìng qiánxíng)

An unusual speech by a Peking University professor made waves over the past week. Cheng Lesong (程乐松), chair of Peking University’s Department of Philosophy, delivered a graduation speech on June 26 that sparked widespread discussion for breaking away from the usual clichés and generic commencement themes.

In the speech, Cheng captured the cultural mood and social pressures facing China’s younger generations today: a society where everything—from career choices to a cup of milk tea—needs to be meaningful, yet increasingly feels meaningless; and where everyone is expected to succeed while increasingly feeling like they’re falling short.

“The anticipatory anxiety about the ruthlessness of social competition leads us to plunge into an overwhelming fear of failure,” Cheng said. “Because we expect constant affirmation, we come to interpret every ordinary day as proof that our lives have failed. We become absorbed in the hope that one day we will ‘begin our real lives,’ forgetting that we are already living them.”

Life was never meant to be meticulously ordered, Cheng argues, and needs room for a certain amount of chaos and twists and turns that no one saw coming. A completely disordered life is unimaginable, but so too is a life of perfect precision. How we go through life depends on how we deal with it, how we understand ourselves, and how we learn to allow life to unfold.

The true mission in our lives, the lifelong task that philosophy presents to us according to Cheng, is therefore to carve out a unique spiritual path for ourselves, and “to move forward steadily amid the cacophony of many voices.”

That message has struck a chord among netizens, with some saying they replayed the speech over and over again because they felt Cheng was really talking about the predicament facing young people today.

That’s a wrap. Have a good week, and keep your head cool.

If you find these newsletters useful, please be sure to like them, and share them if you want. I only started out Eye on Digital China on Substack late last year and could use some help in making sure the right audiences – like you – find my work.

Best,

Manya

Eye on Digital China, by Manya Koetse, is co-published on Substack and What’s on Weibo. Both feature the same new content — so you can read and subscribe wherever you prefer. Substack offers community features, while What’s on Weibo provides full archive access. If you’re already subscribed and want to switch platforms, just get in touch for help. If you no longer wish to receive these newsletters, or are receiving duplicate editions, you can unsubscribe at any time.

Chapter Dive

China’s CITIC Tower Crash: The Story That Never Trended

How information surrounding the CITIC Tower crash was managed, from a five-day media blackout to a sixth-day official narrative.

Published

2 weeks ago

July 2, 2026

Manya Koetse

🔎 Originally published in Eye on Digital China.
My premium newsletter covering the stories, memes, debates, and viral moments shaping online conversations in China. Subscribe here to receive future editions.

The story that never went trending was undoubtedly the biggest story of the week. On June 26, an incident at the Beijing landmark CITIC Tower (aka China Zun 中国尊) in the Chaoyang central business district sparked disbelief online. At 5:55 pm local time, a small plane, a Sunward SA60L Aurora, crashed into the tower, after which wreckage from the small aircraft fell to the street below (video).

For those who immediately responded to the incident on social media, it seemed unimaginable that this had happened in the capital. Beijing is one of the most heavily defended airspace zones in China. Since May of this year, recreational drones are also banned in Beijing, with outdoor flights requiring prior approval from authorities.

“A small plane hit CITIC Tower??? How could something like this happen? What happened to the air defense capabilities in our core restricted zone???“ one Weibo commenter wrote on Friday night.

After videos and images of the incident spread, online discussions were swiftly and thoroughly censored. That same day, while media outlets around the world began reporting on the crash, it did not appear among the top 50 trending topics on Chinese platforms—in fact, it wasn’t reported anywhere at all. As related keywords and hashtags were taken offline, it quickly became clear that this was the “6.26 Incident That Shall Not Be Mentioned.”

Even the next day, when Chaoyang authorities issued a brief official notice, republished by state media, the name of the tower was never mentioned, just that “a single-engine, two-seat light sport aircraft collided with a high-rise building during flight,” and that an investigation was underway. The one person on board, the pilot, died in the crash. Thirteen others were injured.

Later, flight tracking data revealed that the aircraft had taken off from Shifosi Airport, northeast of Beijing, and had come close to a Hainan Airlines passenger jet, forcing at least two commercial flights to abort their landings.

For the five days following the incident, little to no official information was available on the highly unusual incident. Meanwhile, Chinese authorities reportedly ordered a nationwide suspension of most general aviation activities, including recreational flying.

Why the CITIC Tower Incident Triggered an Information Blackout

But why has the censorship surrounding this incident been so intense, leading online censors to scrub all footage and discussion of it from the internet?

This has to do with the nature of the incident.

It is not uncommon for major incidents to be heavily censored, especially when the details surrounding them are still unfolding. But this kind of information “blackout” generally occurs only when incidents are considered particularly sensitive, and the regular toolkits used to manage and control information are no longer deemed sufficient.

Some examples include:

▪️The 2011 Wenzhou Train Crash, which happened at a time when the prestige and reliability of China’s high-speed rail system was celebrated as a flagship national project.

▪️The 2013 Tiananmen SUV ‘Suicide Attack’, which happened in a tightly guarded, already politically sensitive public space and the symbolic heart of the state.

▪️The 2022 Anti-Party Protest Banner at Sitong Bridge, which happened just before the opening of the 20th Party Congress that confirmed Xi Jinping’s unprecedented third term.

▪️The 2024 Beishan Park Stabbings of American Tourists, which happened just as China’s inbound tourism was beginning to recover in the post-COVID era and “China is safe” narratives were playing an increasingly important role in official messaging.

All of these incidents are different in nature, but what they have in common is not just that they are examples of bad news being suppressed, but that they reflect a specific pattern in which news that is bad for the Party-state is suppressed. In their own ways, these incidents—and the discussions and speculation surrounding them—challenge one or more foundational narratives about the competence of China’s leadership, its modernization, its security, its stability, and its capacity to maintain social order.

📌 The 6.26 CITIC Tower incident is particularly sensitive because it touches on several of these core narratives. It immediately opened the door to a flood of politically sensitive questions: How could this happen in the capital? Were the authorities really in control? Were the security systems adequate? Was it a deliberate attack? This all directly contradicts the logic of “Safe China” (平安中国), a grand strategy for governance in the Xi era that seeks to project an image of a closely monitored society in which risks are anticipated and prevented through the integration of efficient public security, surveillance, and Party leadership (see Trevaskes & Lin 2024)¹. A small aircraft striking Beijing’s tallest building—located in one of the country’s most tightly controlled airspaces—challenges precisely this claimed capacity to maintain order, guarantee security, and keep China safe.

📌 Another reason why incidents like the 6.26 one are censored so heavily is that they have the potential to snowball or even trigger copycat behavior. What begins as an isolated accident can quickly evolve into broader discussions about political dissatisfaction, which might spiral into social unrest – and protecting domestic stability is central to the Party-state’s legitimacy and maintenance of power.

📌 A third factor is the symbolic significance of the location. Unlike an ordinary office building, the CITIC Tower is a symbol of Beijing’s cosmopolitan skyline and of China’s economic rise and state-led modernization. Situated in the heart of the capital’s central business district, next to CCTV headquarters and visible across much of the city, it is one of Beijing’s most recognizable landmarks. An incident involving such a building inevitably carries far greater symbolic weight than one occurring in a less prominent location.

⮕ Taken together, these factors make the 6.26 incident unusually sensitive in political, social, and symbolic terms. It is not just a random aviation accident; it touches upon national security, state competence, political control, social stability, and the protection of one of the country’s most symbolic urban spaces. Rather than threatening a single Party narrative, as some of the other aforementioned incidents did, it threatens several at once. This helps explain why it was treated not as an ordinary censored event, but as one requiring an almost complete information blackout.

A Familiar Censorship Playbook

Although these top-censored news incidents are all unique, they follow a similar whack-a-mole-style playbook in suppressing discussion of these events, even though they had only just happened.²

The main playbook is always more or less the same: Sensitive incident occurs → News disappears from front pages and trending search lists → Popular videos and images are taken offline → Incident-specific keywords and hashtags are scrubbed → Censorship expands to generic category-level terms (such as “Beijing,” “Chaoyang District,” or “small plane”) that could lead users back to the incident) → State media remain silent while shifting attention to other news.

(This week, the distraction might have been an otherwise arguably uninteresting controversy involving Chinese singer Han Hong.)³

Offline, the same pattern often plays out through physical scene control: bystanders are asked to delete their footage, journalists are kept away from the scene, or even entire street signs are removed (as happened after the protests on Wulumiqi Road and following the Sitong Bridge protest).

Meanwhile, selected commentary from permitted voices is sometimes allowed to appear online—for example, from former Global Times editor Hu Xijin—although even those posts are not immune from later deletion, as happened following the Beishan Park stabbings. This is often the first step in shaping the official narrative.

A brief authoritative news report may then be released, often ending with a statement that “the incident is under investigation,” which also buys time. Sometimes, however, no meaningful official explanation ever follows. After the 2022 China Eastern MU5735 crash, for example, authorities never released a full public investigation report, even though reports emerging in 2026 claimed the crash, which killed all 132 people on board, was deliberate.

Nevertheless, an official narrative and investigation outcome do usually follow. The 2013 Tiananmen attack, for example, was officially labeled a premeditated terrorist attack orchestrated by the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), with Chinese authorities presenting it as evidence that Xinjiang-linked militancy had become part of a broader international terrorist threat. In doing so, the incident was reframed from a local security failure into part of a global fight against terrorism.

Finally, arrests often follow, and people are held accountable. At the same time, those accused of “spreading rumors” online may also face consequences, while foreign media are often criticized for biased reporting or double standards. These counterattacks further reinforce the official narrative while simultaneously shifting attention away from the original incident.

How AI Chatbots Are Part of the Censorship Ecosystem

For the 6.26 incident, the main narrative for the first five days after it happened was that nothing really happened. Even Hu Xijin posted nothing about the incident.

On Weibo, the hashtag “The Story Behind the CITIC Tower Crash Incident” (#中信集团大厦被撞事件始末#) was taken offline, along with many others.

Five days after the crash, Weibo’s Qwen-3 chatbot (powered by Alibaba) claimed it knew nothing about any incident involving CITIC Tower.

The Weibo chatbot responds to a question about the CITIC Tower incident, saying it knows nothing (July 1st).

Six days after the incident, on July 2nd, DeepSeek’s chatbot went a step further. Rather than simply claiming no information was available, it described reports about the crash as fake news, stating that there were no official records or media coverage and that such rumors originated on “overseas social media platforms.” Kimi refused to answer questions about the incident altogether, while Baidu’s ERNIE Bot said it had no information about the incident and warned users not to believe or spread unverified rumors.

[caption id="attachment_76508" align="aligncenter" width="484"] DeepSeek responded to what happened at CITIC Tower, claiming it’s “fake news” (July 2nd)

The 6.26 CITIC Tower incident illustrates a broader development in China’s online information ecosystem. A great deal has changed since the 2011 Wenzhou train crash. Social media control has become far more sophisticated—not only through better automated filtering, but also through platform regulation, agenda-setting, distraction strategies, and increasingly coordinated narrative management.

Now, AI chatbots have become part of that ecosystem.

Integrated AI assistants (LLM-powered chatbots embedded in platforms such as Weibo, Douyin, and other Chinese apps since 2025) are not merely additional tools subject to censorship. They have become an integral part of the online information environment and increasingly play a role in the handling of sensitive incidents.

Unlike Grok on X, these AI assistants are deeply integrated into the user experience and actively encourage people to ask questions, search for information, and receive summaries of ongoing events and controversies. What makes them particularly powerful from the perspective of propaganda and information control is that they can centralize official narratives at the platform level. Previously, that role was distributed across state media, government accounts, and other official actors.

Because these chatbots do not present themselves as state media or government authorities, they can appear more neutral and objective. Users may perceive them simply as AI-generated summaries with less media bias and greater factual accuracy.⁴ In the case of the 6.26 incident, they effectively conveyed a state-ordered message to social media users: that really, nothing happened, and that if something happened, it must be fake news.

“A Public Security Incident Caused by Personal Factors”

On July 2nd, Beijing Chaoyang’s verified official account issued a second short statement via its WeChat channel. This time, providing more details about what had happened on June 26.

According to the statement, the pilot was 66-year-old Mr. Liu (刘), a Beijing resident who was self-employed and lived alone. He obtained a sport pilot license in 2021 and a private pilot license in 2024.

Authorities said Liu deliberately deviated from his flight route, subsequently lost contact with the airport, and then intentionally crashed into the building, killing himself. They added that he had suffered from depression in recent years and that his diary contained multiple references to wanting to “end his life.” The incident was officially described as “a public security incident caused by personal factors” (个人原因造成的危害公共安全案件).

The second, July 2nd, statement.

It is noteworthy that such a short statement includes details about the pilot’s age, marital status, pilot licenses, mental health, and even diary entries, yet provides virtually no information about the building itself, the security response, or the broader circumstances of the incident. The statement never mentions the CITIC Tower by name, referring only to “a high-rise building near the East Third Ring Road.” It likewise omits any mention of the aircraft entering restricted airspace, the reported disruption to commercial air traffic, or the obvious questions the incident raises about security failures.

On Weibo, the statement was widely shared, but comment sections beneath those posts remained either hidden or only contained a selection of replies.

And so, six days after the incident, there is a slight opening in the media blackout—just enough to establish the official narrative. This framing reduces a wide range of sensitive questions to the story of one troubled individual. It is not about broader questions of public safety or governance, but about a lonely man’s suicide; it is not about the Party-state, but about personal circumstances; it minimizes a news event that received maximum attention and turns a possible mass attack into an isolated incident. And so the message subtly shifts from “nothing happened” to “it’s time to move on.” The playbook is complete. It’s almost as if nothing really happened.

By Manya Koetse

With contributions by Miranda Barnes

See: Susan Trevaskes and Delia Lin, “Integrating Stability Maintenance into Comprehensive Governance: The Burgeoning ‘Safe China’ Behemoth,” Modern China 50, no. 6 (2024): 671–701. https://doi.org/10.1177/00977004241254709.
Some might say the 2015 Tianjin explosions also belong here, but that disaster was so large and witnessed by so many people that, while the official narrative was tightly controlled, it did not receive the same near-total information blackout.
This controversy involved Han Hong (韩红), a popular Chinese singer and philanthropist, who recently urged Beijing audiences in the local dialect to show up at the box office for the underperforming latest Feng Xiaogang film Catch the Spy (《抓特务》), for which she is the music producer. She used the colloquial expression zǒu ge miànr (走个面儿, roughly “show your face”), and was accused of inappropriately putting moral pressure on people to buy tickets, which also led to criticism of her charity work. She made the remarks at a June 17 premiere, and it didn’t become a dominant story until eleven days later.
See also: Yan Li, “The Impact of Automated Journalism on Media Bias, Accuracy, and Public Trust: Evidence from Young Chinese News Consumers,” Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 13 (2026): 688. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-026-06612-6.

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