Recently, there has been an online circulating urgent notice issued by China Post, a subsidiary of the Ministry of Finance of the Chinese Communist Party, requesting to cease the delivery and retail sale of the 6th issue of the “People” magazine for the year 2024 within the Beijing area, and to destroy it on the spot, without specifying the reason. However, speculation from the public suggests that it may be related to the article “An American Walking in the Northeast” within the magazine.
On various domestic and international social media platforms, an extensively circulated official notification indicates that the Beijing Press and Publication Distribution Bureau of China Post Group issued an “Urgent Notice on Stopping Delivery of the 6th Issue of the People Magazine for 2024” on July 5.
The notice states that according to the publication’s requirements, the 6th issue of the “People” magazine (postal Dispatch code 2-203) released on July 3, 2024, needs to be immediately stopped from delivery and retail by your bureau for reasons stated, and it should be destroyed on the spot, strictly prohibited from entering the market. The rescheduled release date for that issue will be informed separately.
The notice also mentions that the provinces (regions, cities) outside the Beijing supply range, including Jiangsu, Anhui, Guangdong, Hunan, Sichuan, and Chongqing, are not affected by the above circumstances.
The official notification did not elaborate on the specific situation of the official destruction of this issue of the “People” magazine, leading to various speculations in online public opinion.
Commenting on Weibo, a netizen remarked, “What’s wrong with this issue of the ‘People’ magazine? Anyone has this magazine, can take photos and send them to me, with compensation.”
Another Weibo user named “Financial Comment” stated, “The ‘People’ magazine is being destroyed on the spot. Some say it’s an advertising issue, but I don’t think so. Advertising issues are disputes between the magazine and the advertisers, usually there will be repetitive confirmations before publication, even sending samples in advance. If there’s no feedback indicating a problem, then the magazine will default to confirming publication. Even if there are issues later, there are many ways to resolve them. On-the-spot destruction may be due to content.”
On the X social media platform, some users noticed that this issue of the magazine might be related to an article titled “An American Walking in the Northeast.”
A search conducted by a reporter from Epoch Times found that the official Weibo account of the “People” magazine had posted this article on May 27. The article tells the story of an American named Paul Salopek who traveled on foot in China; he was a former journalist who had won the Pulitzer Prize twice.
It is worth noting that Paul was walking in China during the period of the Chinese epidemic.
The article describes how, in late summer and early autumn of 2021, Paul left Myanmar with the intention of entering China through Yunnan, but the Chinese border was closed due to the epidemic, so he had to fly to Shanghai. After arriving at Shanghai Pudong Airport, Paul was taken to a quarantine hotel and vaccinated with a domestically produced vaccine. He then flew to Yunnan, departed from there heading north, and arrived in Beijing in June 2023. In mid-November 2023, Paul left Beijing with the author of the article and two other hikers, Pan Pan and Haotian, heading to Liaoning.
The article concludes by mentioning that ten years ago, when Paul set off from Africa, he wrote about Cristina Calderón from Tierra del Fuego in his first column for National Geographic. She was the last indigenous person of a South American tribe on Earth. According to the original plan, Paul should have reached the end of the South American world in 2020 and successfully met Cristina. However, reality is that in 2023, Paul was still walking with us in China, while Cristina had passed away in the winter of 2022 due to complications from COVID-19 (Chinese Communist Party virus).
The article does not mention the eventual whereabouts of this American man. The reporter observed that apart from the sensitive terms recognized by the authorities such as “American,” “domestically produced vaccine,” “COVID” (also known as the “Chinese Communist Party virus”), and “COVID-induced complications,” no other “sensitive terms” were mentioned.