Eye roll captures ennui of China’s rubber stamp

A Chinese reporter has been caught on camera in a moment of spontaneous honesty at the National People’s Congress | WATCH

Liang Xiangyi’s viral eye-roll during a press conference on the sidelines of the National People’s Congress in Beijing on Tuesday.

It was a bolt from the blue.

Suddenly a shaft of spontaneity cut sharply and hilariously through yet another pro forma National People’s Congress press conference in Beijing at which an official was providing a semi-scripted answer to a semi-scripted question.

And it may well become — vying with the voting by 99.8 per cent of parliamentarians to back Xi Jinping’s retention of the presidency for as long as he likes — the single scene that most viewers best recall during this year’s TV viewing in China.

On Tuesday Zhang Huijun, a reporter from American Multimedia Television, wearing red, was asking a lengthy question of Xiao Yaqing, the chairman of the state-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission.

“The transformation of the responsibility of supervision for state assets is a topic of universal concern,” asserted Zhang as she went on to invite a response to her flattering statement about Mr Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative.

Standing immediately to her right, and unavoidably in the camera shot, as China Central TV covered the event live, was Liang Xiangyi, a journalist for Shanghai-based financial news agency Yicai.com.

Liang, wearing blue, glanced at Ms Zhang as she was speaking, a couple of minutes in to her question, and then tossed her head and rolled her eyes in a devastatingly eloquent gesture of exasperation.

The gesture immediately went viral on China’s internet. The censors rushed to close the image down, but it was too late. Millions had already downloaded the GIF and associated images and commentary.

Among the most popular responses was a tribute re-enactment by three straight-faced young men, including one wearing red and one blue, the latter seeking to emulate the intensity of Liang’s now-famous gesture.

Weibo was briefly alight with banter on the lines of “who do you support, red or blue?” One netizen commented that Liang was “rolling her eyes for the whole country”.

Another called it the hallmark gesture “for the New Era” that Mr Xi’s Thought — this week enshrined into the national constitution — has declared.

Demonstrating new-era entrepreneurialism, T-shirts and smartphone cases are already on sale featuring That Look. Liang has become the most-censored name on Weibo after her account soared to more than 100,000 followers.

Yesterday neither she nor her employer were available for comment.