From the late 1970s onwards, as China was opening up but had yet to assume a major role in international affairs, it struggled to handle criticism from abroad. Hu’s eagerness to reframe a story about sexual assault and censorship as a story about clashing political ideologies and anti-China prejudice is part of a significant change in the way China presents itself to the world. “I’m surprised that they didn’t say the lady who showed up these two days is a fake Peng Shuai, a double.” Those who continued to question Peng’s safety, Hu wrote, were trying to “demonize China’s system”.

“They only believe the story about China that they imagine,” he tweeted. When this intervention still failed to convince many that Peng was safe, Hu took the opportunity to hammer home one of the central themes of his three-decade career in journalism: when it comes to China, the western media sees only what it wants to see.

On 21 November, the International Olympic Committee spoke with Peng on a video call and declared that she was “doing fine”. To many observers, this seemingly stage-managed footage, disseminated by organs of the Chinese state, was not reassuring.

Chang jin hu instal the new