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Laptop showing binary computer code and the Flag of the People's Republic of China

08/01/2022 GMT

China's online army of commenters

BBC World Service - From Our Own Correspondent, China's online army of commenters

The backlash to any 'insult to China' online; plus stories from Peru, Sudan and Denmark

The instant backlash to any perceived insult to China online; children bereaved by Covid in Peru; a general from South Sudan seeks allies in Khartoum; cake and culture in Denmark

Pascale Harter introduces dispatches from correspondents, reporters and authors worldwide.

Plenty of journalists have had the experience of being “trolled” – attacked on social media for what they have written or said. But if they're published anything perceived as insulting to the People's Republic of China, the backlash can be particularly intense. Tessa Wong was trolled recently, but rather than simply accepting the abuse, she tried to find out why so many people had taken part in these attacks. Some of the storms of comment were not the spontaneous outbursts of outraged citizens which they might have appeared... 

Even if coronavirus were to vanish altogether tomorrow, the effects of the past two years will be with us for a long time. In Peru tens of thousands of children have lost parents or carers to Covid, and many of them already faced widespread poverty even before the pandemic. As Jane Chambers explains, the death of a family breadwinner can leave children facing terrible hardship, along with the grief.

Meeting a rebel leader can be difficult at the best of times, but particularly so if that leader is in the custody of state security. General Simon Gatwich is the head of one of the factions which have been fighting in South Sudan since its independence from Sudan in 2011. Although a peace agreement has been reached, it’s considered a fragile one. General Gatwich had headed north to Khartoum, in Sudan - in search of allies and backers. Joshua Craze tried to find out what exactly he was up to there.

And Amy Guttman is served heaping portions of Danish language and history - as well as more cake than she can deal with - at a celebration in southern Jutland. This part of Denmark spent many years under the control of Prussian and then German occupiers - but local people devised a roundabout, and delicious, way of keeping their culture alive: the "coffee board", an elaborate selection of cakes, biscuits and pastries, served to fuel public meetings and political debate over the decades.

Producer: Polly Hope

(Image: Laptop showing binary computer code and the Flag of the People's Republic of China. Credit: Smederevac)

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