Normally any savvy PR person would consider the Streisand Effect when advising on an embarrassing news story. Why propagate it more? Yet the Chinese government’s very red lines leave it almost absurdly vulnerable to overreaction when confronted with evidence of its malfeasance.
Bloomberg and the New York Times were blocked on publication of stories concerning the vast wealth of the families of Xi Jinping and former premier Wen Jiabao – and now every mention of their blocking brings up that fact. The arrest and imprisonment of democracy campaigner Liu Xiaobo was no doubt one of the main factors behind his being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. (Which itself lead to the preposterous banning of Norwegian salmon, on the spurious grounds that the Nobel committee is located in Oslo, though it has no connection to the Norwegian government).
