BEIJING — The story dripped with intrigue.

A frantic President Trump, holding court in a bathrobe, ordered his aides to wrap the White House telephones in tinfoil, several Chinese publications reported this week, citing The New Yorker.

There was only one problem: The New Yorker article, by the comedian Andy Borowitz, was satire.

That did not stop the story, purporting to describe the depths of Mr. Trump’s worry that his predecessor, former President Barack Obama, was eavesdropping on him, from ricocheting across the Chinese internet.

“Trump turns White House upside down looking for signs of Obama: ‘I know he’s still here!’ ” read headlines in respected publications like Caijing, a business magazine, and Sina, a news portal.

Internet readers were puzzled. The state-run news media — and China’s army of censors — are not known for making jokes. Was this for real?