Last week, AFP journalists in Washington saw Mei Xiang and Tian Tian, seemingly healthy and devouring frozen treats in their enclosures as the zoo hosted a nine-day 'Panda Palooza' celebration with panda-themed refreshments, film screenings and music concerts.
'The narratives are deeply rooted in Chinese nationalism and mistrust of the West and have been amplified across Chinese media and social media.' 'Amid increased competition between the US and China, the deterioration of US-China relations is now echoed in Chinese narratives' alleging the mistreatment of pandas, the DFRLab said in a report last month. In other posts on the same platforms, an image purported to show Mei Xiang's mate, Tian Tian, sedated and restrained during an examination.īut the photo actually depicts a panda in China's Fujian province undergoing an examination in 2005, according to the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab).
The posts triggered impassioned pleas for the panda to be rescued and returned to China, with the hashtag 'Save Mei Xiang' viewed on Weibo hundreds of millions of times.īut according to AFP fact-checkers, the video actually shows a different male panda in Singapore undergoing a health check-up in 2015, a story widely reported by local media at the time.
