China censors a 'Tiananmen' photograph of athletes hugging

A photo of two Chinese female athletes, Lin Yuwei and Wu Yanni, referencing the Tiananmen Square massacre, has been censored on Chinese social media. The athletes had embraced each other after a 100m hurdles race at the Asian Games, where Lin won gold. The photo was posted on Weibo, one of China's largest social media platforms, but posts containing the photo were replaced with grey squares. However, some Chinese news articles still show the photo.

China has won nearly 300 medals so far in the Asian Games, currently taking place in Hangzhou. Discussion of the events in Tiananmen Square is highly sensitive in China, with younger generations growing up with little to no knowledge about the massacre. Posts relating to the massacres are regularly removed from the tightly controlled internet.

Last year, a popular Chinese influencer's livestream ended abruptly after he showed his audience a vanilla log cake resembling a tank, a reference to the iconic image of the Tank Man. The government controls the internet, and discussions of the Tiananmen Square massacre remain taboo in China.