‘Ignore April Fool’s Day’:

Asia

Kim

China’s Communist Party has a new target in its campaign against pernicious Western cultural influences: April Fool’s Day.

“The so-called Western April Fool’s Day does not conform to Chinese cultural traditions or socialist core values,” the party’s leading propaganda organ, Xinhua News Agency, said in a brief message on its official microblog Friday.

“Hope people won’t believe in rumors, start rumors or spread rumors,” the message concluded.

Along with official newspapers including the flagship People’s Daily and state broadcaster CCTV, Xinhua has been key in the party’s campaign to rid China of Western cultural influences seen as challenging its political orthodoxy.

Along with their distaste for humor, China’s propaganda czars are also notoriously bad at spotting a joke. Stories from the satirical website The Onion have been reported as fact in the Chinese press, most famously in 2012 when a story about Kim Jong Un being voted the “sexiest man alive” appeared on the People’s Daily website alongside a photo spread of the portly North Korean dictator. (AP)