In China, a single-engine, two-seater plane crashed into Beijing’s tallest building (528 meters) on Friday. Only the pilot was in the plane, who died, while 13 people present in the building were injured. Two big glasses on the exterior of the building broke and a big hole was left there. The building is in Beijing’s Central Business District, near Zhongnanhai, the government complex of China’s top leaders. According to reports, earlier there was a helicopter crash in Beijing in 2022, in which two pilots died.
Within minutes of the recent accident, videos of the incident, pictures of burning debris and statements of eyewitnesses disappeared from Chinese social media platforms as if nothing had ever happened. The question arises whether China is covering up the cost of human lives to save its image? Was it just an accident, the pilot’s negligence or some major lapse in China’s aircraft safety system? After all, what does Beijing want to hide from the world? Let us know why China is doing this
How does China’s censorship work?
The meaning of the Internet in China is not what it is in the rest of the world. China completely controls the Internet of its country through the Great Firewall. Immediately after the Beijing accident, China’s Internet censorship agency Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) became active.
- Blocking keywords: Terms like Beijing plane crash, plane fire, and flight accident were immediately blocked on Weibo (China’s Twitter), WeChat, and Douyin (China’s TikTok).
- Suspension of Accounts: Local people who uploaded photos or videos of the accident had their accounts suspended or their posts deleted within minutes.
- State media monopoly: Only that information about the accident is coming out which is filtered and released by government news agencies like Xinhua or Global Times.
Why is China hiding the photos?
1. Excuse of social stability
The biggest fear of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is the spread of any kind of dissatisfaction or panic among the public. The government believes that horrifying pictures or videos can create panic among the public and raise questions on the efficiency of the government or administration. The government calls it maintaining social stability, but in reality it is a way of controlling the narrative.
2. Image of aviation industry and infrastructure
China is the second largest aviation market in the world and is also promoting its indigenous aircraft (like C919). Pictures of the plane crash can expose China’s claims of safe infrastructure. To prevent Western media or rival countries from using this as a technical failure of China, an immediate digital blackout is imposed.
3. Protection from foreign intelligence agencies and investigations
In this age of open-source intelligence, a small photograph or video clip can enable Western countries or independent aviation experts to determine the real cause of a crash (such as engine failure, missile strike, or lack of maintenance). China does not want any independent organization to reach any conclusion before its official investigation report.
3. China has a long history of censorship
This censorship of Beijing is nothing new. China has a long history of cover-ups:
- 2011 Wenzhou train accident: Immediately after the high-speed bullet train accident, instead of investigating the debris, the Chinese authorities started digging a pit and burying it there, so that the photographs could not go out. This incident had raised serious questions across the world on the credibility of China.
- MU5735 Incident of 2022: China Eastern Airlines’ Boeing 737 plane crashed in the mountains of Guangxi, killing 132 people. Even at that time, China had deleted lakhs of posts related to the accident from social media. Till date the black box report of that accident has not been made completely public.
severe lack of transparency
According to the protocol of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the investigation of plane accidents should be transparent so that such incidents can be prevented in future. The images and data from accidents are not only tragic, they are important evidence to improve aviation safety. China may save its political image by removing the photos, but its effect will be that its confidence in the global aviation sector will continuously decrease.
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