Chinese state media has become the target of ridicule online after a video it tweeted of a picturesque town, used to promote a “peaceful getaway” in China, was found to be a village in Switzerland.
Hashtagging “#GlamorChina,” China Daily posted the clip on May 10 showing a dog walking on a path winding through lush hills in a quaint countryside town.
The tweet read: “Wouldn’t you like to visit this peaceful getaway and enjoy play time with your dog in a small town nestled at the foot of the mountain?
This is funny … China Daily (Chinese state-controlled media) literally STOLE a video made by a lady in Brienz, Switzerland – which included her social media famous dog – and tried to pass it off as somewhere in China pic.twitter.com/u5YqfzKrxx
— HRH Rowannicus Rex (@rowan007) May 11, 2021
The clip was actually cropped from a YouTube video posted by Swiss photographer Sylvia Michel in April. Michel is based in Brienz, a municipality north of the Swiss Alps, and regularly films videos in 4K of the scenery near her home.
“You have stolen the video from me and from Switzerland. You should delete this tweet,” Michel wrote on Twitter in response to China Daily.
The state media outlet had even flipped the video horizontally, perhaps a vain attempt to throw off suspicion, and added a China Daily watermark to the bottom of the clip.
In the comments on her YouTube video of the original clip, Michel said she had reported the tweet to Twitter. China Daily has since removed the tweet.
Online, social media users mocked China Daily’s blatant plagiarism.
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“Switzerland is an unalienable part of China, and have been on the same continental mass for thousands of years,” one person wrote ironically on Twitter, using the abrasive tone that Chinese state officials use to talk about contentious territories like Taiwan and Hong Kong.
Another person tweeted: “The housing styles aren’t even Asian… there are quite a few beautiful mountain villages in China, but this isn’t one of them.”
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