Chinese Media Target West For Its Handling Of Virus Crisis

Official news outlets used words like ‘purgatory’ and ‘apocalypse’ to describe the tragic hospital scenes in Italy and Spain

- Li Yuan

Trevor Noah, the host of The Daily Show, has won praise on the Chinese Internet for his searing criticism of the Trump administration’s mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic. So has Jerry Kowal, an American who makes Chinese-language videos chronicling the dire situation in New York.

China’s response to the virus has its own sharp-eyed critics at home, and they have found a vastly different reception. One resident of the virus-struck city of Wuhan, who writes under the name Fang Fang, documented despair, misery, and everyday life in an online diary and has endured withering attacks on social media.