With more than 100 million subscribers, he is one of the most influential men in all of China: extremely popular, Li Jiaqi is a real star in the country. But the young man has literally disappeared for 10 days and has given no sign of life since a video that did not really please the Chinese authorities: on the eve of the 33rd anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, he showed in a live on Weibo (the Chinese social network) a tank-shaped cake.
A provocation that clearly did not pass: a few minutes after the cake appeared on the screen, the live suddenly cut off… and no one has heard from the influencer since. It must be said that in the country, this massacre is completely concealed: it is never taught at school and it is even forbidden to mention it under penalty, like this young man, of paying the price.
But her fans are concerned: hashtags in his name appear regularly to demand to know what happened to him, despite growing censorship. Many of them were hoping to see him reappear this Sunday for a live he had promised for a long time but they were disappointed since no one showed up.
A story reminiscent of tennis player Peng Shuai: a few months ago, the 36-year-old accused a former minister of rape on Weibo, a message that lasted only a quarter of an hour before to be deleted. She then disappeared for a few weeks, until the international community mobilized to find her.
Suddenly reappearing during supposedly free but in reality very controlled interviews, she had denied these accusations, explaining that she had not understood all this media hype behind her and that she was putting an end, definitively, to her career as a professional player. Other Chinese personalities had been threatened in the same way, disappearing before returning “wiser“, some months later.
A very worrying way of doing things that the Chinese people were not aware of, due to very powerful censorship. But this time, the disappearance of Li Jiaqi will be difficult to hide: ultra-popular in China, he is extremely expected and sought after.