Elon Musk is in China for the primary time in 3 years, however folks on the Chinese language web solely care a couple of large panda referred to as Ya Ya

  • Elon Musk is visiting China, however a large panda referred to as Ya Ya is upstaging him on the Chinese language web.
  • Movies of Ya Ya, who simply returned from the Memphis Zoo, collected 230 million views on Tuesday.
  • She’s grow to be a lightning rod for Chinese language patriotism as she comes house from a 20-year stint abroad.

Elon Musk is perhaps the king of Twitter, however China’s social media solely has eyes for Ya Ya the panda.

Musk arrived in Beijing on Tuesday to kick off his first go to to China in three years, assembly with International Minister Qin Gang and the nation’s trade and commerce ministries.

It is a essential journey for Musk — he needs to broaden Tesla’s enterprise within the nation, at the same time as US-China relations frequently bitter.

But the high-stakes go to barely made a blip on Weibo, China’s model of Twitter, other than some curiosity in what Musk was served for dinner (Beijing’s famed roast duck was notably lacking from the menu).

As a substitute, Ya Ya, the enormous panda, dominated the day.

After a month of ready in quarantine, the 23-year-old panda has lastly reunited along with her kin on the Beijing Zoo.

She’s returned from a 20-year stint on the Memphis Zoo, the place she was on mortgage to the US as a part of China’s “panda diplomacy.” 

Pandas are already a logo of nationalistic satisfaction in China, however Ya Ya has grow to be a lightning rod for Chinese language patriotism due to allegations in 2021 that she was mistreated within the US.

The Memphis Zoo has denied the accusations, however as Washington and Beijing continued to butt heads, Weibo customers noticed the stories of neglect as an affront to their nation. 

Now that Ya Ya’s again on the town, footage of her frolicking within the Beijing Zoo, cataloged beneath the hashtag “Ya Ya joins the group chat,” has accrued 230 million views on Weibo, in accordance with information seen by Insider.

Her return was additionally the highest information story on the platform, although to be truthful, Weibo is closely censored and moderated.

Musk’s duckless dinner, alternatively, garnered 51 million views on the identical day, whereas hashtags about his China go to and Tesla’s inventory gained 2.3 million and 5 million views respectively, per Weibo information.

The billionaire, who owns a Weibo account with 2 million followers, made a publish on the platform on Tuesday morning, praising China’s house program. 

This is hoping he’ll discover time to fulfill “Yilong Ma,” his Chinese language doppelgänger who tries his finest to mimic the CEO in English.

 

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