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The Evergreen Laurel Hotel in Paris has found itself at the centre of a controversy for not displaying the national flag of the People's Republic of China (PRC).  Screenshot from Douyin, 张教官的有趣人生 _________ The incident began when a Chinese influencer, known for his Douyin channel "Instructor Zhang's Interesting Life" (张教官的有趣人生), posted a video on social media accusing the hotel of not displaying the PRC flag among the flags of the countries participating in the 2024 Paris Olympics. Douyin is a popular short-video platform in the PRC, launched in September 2016 by ByteDance. Its international counterpart is TikTok.  Zhang discovered that the lobby of the Evergreen Laurel Hotel in Paris was adorned with flags of various countries, except for the PRC’s five-star red flag. Zhang and his crew uploaded a video in which they pleaded with hotel staff to hang the flag, even offering to give them one themselves. But the front desk refused. They claimed that they needed the perm

On August 11, the 2024 Paris Olympics wrapped up with the final medal count showing a tie between the United States and the People's Republic of China (PRC) . Both teams finished the competition with 40 gold medals, but the US took the overall lead with 126 medals, leaving the PRC trailing with 91. However, PRC cyber-nationalists are not ready to accept this outcome. They insist that China actually won 44 gold medals! As the Olympics drew to a close on Sunday, PRC state media outlet CCTV News took to the micro-blogging platform Weibo to announce the results of the games:  “China is tied for first place in the gold medal list,” CCTV wrote. “Today, all the competitions in Paris have concluded. The Chinese delegation has won 40 gold medals, 27 silver medals and 24 bronze medals—an outstanding performance! Share this proudly, remember this glorious moment, and pay tribute to the Chinese athletes! #IAmProudOfTheChineseTeam.” But Chinese cyber-nationalists aka “little pinks” (小粉红) woul

“Millions of migrants from other cultures challenge the foundations of our community, the unwritten rules of coexistence, and thus national identity itself,” wrote the German politician Alice Weidel in her 2019 book “Counter-arguments. Thoughts about Germany” (German: “Widerworte. Gedanken über Deutschland”). Weidel is the co-chairwoman of the far right party Alternative for Germany (Alternative für Deutschland, AfD) and the leader of the AfD parliamentary group in the Bundestag, the lower house of Germany's federal legislature. In recent years, the AfD has gained significant support and influence in German politics. The party was founded in 2013 as an anti-euro movement, but later shifted increasingly towards right-wing extremism.   Alice Weidel in 2019.  Sandro Halank , CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons The AfD surged to 24% in a January 2024 YouGov poll, trailing only the Christian Democrats (29%), and ahead of the Social Democrats (15%) and the Greens (12%). On January 10, 2