Author Archives: David Bandurski

David is the co-director of the China Media Project, a research and fellowship program with the Journalism & Media Studies Centre at the University of Hong Kong. A frequent commentator on Chinese media, his writings have appeared in Far Eastern Economic Review, the Wall Street Journal, Index on Censorship, the SCMP and others.

‘Eating blood-soaked dumplings’: Beijing’s dehumanising propaganda during Covid-19

by David Bandurski

Writing on social media back in February, Chinese writer Yi Zhongtian likened the excessive emotion, positivity and adulation in reporting and commentary on the coronavirus epidemic in China to “eating blood-soaked dumplings”  (吃人血馒头). This was a reference to Lu Xun’s 1919 short story “Medicine,” the writer’s indictment of senseless superstition, in which poor and illiterate parents […]