China’s Response to Reports of Torture: ‘Fake News’

“FAKE NEWS,” a Twitter post declared. “Prejudice-based,” another said. “Cleverly orchestrated lies,” a news article asserted. President Donald Trump’s harangues against the American news media appear to have inspired a new genre of commentary in China’s state media, whose propagandists spiced up social media posts and news articles with Trumpian flourishes this week. People’s Daily, the flagship newspaper of the ruling Communist Party, mimicked Mr. Trump’s characteristic bluster — and his fondness for capital letters — on March 3 in denouncing Western news coverage of a Chinese lawyer and human rights advocate who said he had been tortured.