A post about giraffes by the U.S. Embassy in Beijing became a lightning rod for Chinese netizens to air grievances over their country's economic woes and ailing stock market over the weekend.
The post, uploaded Friday night to China's microblogging platform Weibo, had received more than 166,000 comments, received 719,000 "likes" and been shared more than 18,000 times by Monday evening local time.
Though Chinese officials have claimed that the country achieved 5.2 percent GDP growth last year, it is losing ground relative to the U.S. One of a number of headwinds facing the world's second-largest economy is its equities market, which has lost some $6.3 trillion in market value over the last three years.
The giraffe post highlighted the conservation efforts of Namibia-based Giraffe Conservation Foundation and its partners, including Virginia-based Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, using GPS data to monitor the animals' movements.
Some netizens vented frustration over the handling of China's stock exchanges.
"The anger of 200 million Chinese people against the government has reached its peak," one Weibo user said Friday, referencing the approximate number of Chinese retail shareholders.
"History has harmed my country, and the Chinese stock market has been shorting for more than 30 years," another said.
"Is it too late to go to Nasdaq now?" asked one account, in reference to the Nasdaq Stock Market in New York City."
Many Chinese netizens made tongue-in-cheek appeals to the U.S. for assistance.
"Can you take care of the stock market?" one asked the embassy.
"Please use diplomatic means to take over the shareholders," another said.
"World Police, help us," said another account.
Elsewhere on Weibo, under the hashtag for the U.S. Embassy, netizens took note of the phenomenon.
"I heard that the U.S. embassy's Weibo was lively last night," one user wrote Saturday.
"On the U.S. embassy's giraffe Weibo post, the number of comments has exceeded 150,000, which should be the most popular Weibo post in recent years. It's a shame!" said another.
"A bunch of A-share refugees went to the U.S. embassy's Weibo account to cry and mourn," another said.
A-shares are the shares of incorporated companies that are based in mainland China and listed on the country's Shenzhen and Shanghai stock exchanges.
"Long live China. Long live Sino-U.S. friendship, long live giraffes," declared one account.
The Chinese internet is largely cut off from the outside and under constant scrutiny by state censors.
In December, Weibo reportedly sent out notices to the inboxes of netizens who had commented about the state of the China's economy, warning that offenders against repeating this activity.
"Are there many people who have been slightly blocked by the CSRC [China Securities Regulatory Commission] officials? I scold the United States every day, but the posts have not been blocked by the U.S. embassy," one Weibo user pointed out Monday.
Newsweek has reached out to the China Securities Regulatory Commission with a written request for comment.
An X account, formerly Twitter, that frequently posts on Chinese social media trends said Saturday: "One of the reasons why investors poured into the comment area of the U.S. embassy's Weibo is that the CSRC and all related accounts have disabled comments."
Newsweek was unable to independently confirm the veracity of the statement.
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Micah McCartney is a reporter for Newsweek based in Taipei, Taiwan. He covers U.S.-China relations, East Asian and Southeast Asian ... Read more
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