Lampooning Hui Ka Yan has become something of a national pastime in China. Once one of the country’s richest men, the tycoon was detained in September for unspecified crimes. His company, Evergrande, the world’s most indebted property developer, is on the cusp of death; a debt-restructuring plan for it has collapsed. No sooner did news of Mr Hui’s detention spread than a flood of jokes at his expense surged through China’s social media, pillorying his extravagance and pomposity.
The message, which caused the account to be suspended, was a poke at the ineffectiveness of central measures aimed at reviving the economy: consumers were doing the opposite of what the government wanted. But such voices are rare. Netizens are sometimes wary even of serious debate about the property market. One piece of analysis, published online on October 9th, compared China’s housing policy with America’s.