Chinese bloggers got on the wrong side of censors this week when they likened an image of Presidents Xi and Obama at the Sunnylands estate in California to a picture of the popular children’s cartoon characters Winnie the Pooh and Tigger. The image was swiftly deleted from the micro-blogging site Sina Weibo, almost as quickly as a photoshopped picture of Chinese leaders doing Gangnam Style.
As the South China Morning Post pointed out, if China’s social media censors had a little more of a sense of humor, perhaps Xi-the-Pooh would have done much to endear China’s serious leader to his populace, while helping to repair the world’s largely negative image of China.