CHINA: Social Media Bans Calling Kim Jong-Un “Fat”

The Associated Press reports:

Chinese websites are censoring “Kim Fatty the Third,” a nickname widely used to disparage North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, after officials from his country reportedly conveyed their displeasure in a meeting with their Chinese counterparts. Searches for the Chinese words “Jin San Pang” on the search engine Baidu and microblogging platform Weibo returned no results this week.

The nickname pokes fun at Kim’s girth and his status as the third generation of the Kim family to rule the world’s only hereditary communist dynasty. It’s especially popular among young, irreverent Chinese who tend to look down on their country’s would-be ally.

Relations between China and North Korea have been strained by the North’s nuclear weapons program, which China has condemned along with South Korea, Japan, the United States and Russia. But Beijing continues to support the Kim regime with limited trade and diplomatic backing.

North Korean officials, fearing that Kim would find out about the nickname, lodged a formal request with China recently to prohibit names disparaging Kim from appearing in the media, according to Hong Kong newspaper reports.

According to the AP, the sites have not yet banned “Kim Fat Fat Fat.”