According to a photo shared by foreign journalists stationed in China, Chinese censorship officials once interrupted the broadcast of the US Vice Presidential debate. At that moment, Pence was discussing the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident.
On Wednesday, BBC journalist Stephen McDonell posted a photo on the social platform X. The photo seemed to show a television screen with the message “Signal exception, coming back soon.”
McDonell stated that he was watching CNN’s broadcast of the US Vice Presidential debate at the time.
He speculated that the reason Chinese censorship officials interrupted the broadcast was Pence answering questions about the Tiananmen incident. The Chinese Communist Party used tanks and military force to violently suppress unarmed student protesters during the Tiananmen Square massacre, a topic heavily censored in China.
“I speculate that the Chinese (Communist Party) censors terminated CNN’s coverage of the US Vice Presidential debate because the question of when Pence arrived in China was raised, mentioning the bloody crackdown in Tiananmen Square,” McDonell wrote.
During the Vice Presidential debate, the moderator asked Pence about discrepancies in his statements regarding his whereabouts during the Tiananmen Square massacre. Pence had publicly stated he was in Hong Kong at the time, but reports surfaced indicating he did not arrive until August of that year.
Pence admitted that he misspoke, acknowledging he arrived in Hong Kong in August of that year.
“I sometimes get confused,” he said. “I arrived there in the summer of that year, I misspoke.”
He added, “During the period of democratic protests, I was in Hong Kong and mainland China, and I learned a lot about governance that was needed.”
During the Tuesday evening debate, Pence and Harris’s past statements were closely scrutinized.
The moderator also questioned Republican presidential candidate Pence about his previous severe criticism of Trump, followed by his vote in support of Trump for president and now serving as his running mate.
The moderator asked if, given his changing stance, Americans could trust Pence to provide the advice Trump needs rather than just saying what he wants to hear.
Pence stated that his initial criticism of Trump was misguided due to media spreading false information about Trump, leading him to misjudge Trump initially.
He said that he now supports Trump because he is “serving the American people.”
Pence also acknowledged that if Congressional Republicans and Democrats focused more on governance, Trump’s first term could have been more successful.