A call from a top Chinese official to “educate” Wuhan residents on how to show gratitude to President Xi Jinping is turning into a public relations disaster for the Communist party.

Chinese internet users unleashed a torrent of anger on social media after Wang Zhonglin, Communist party secretary of Wuhan, last week said it was “necessary to carry out gratitude education among the people of the whole city” in order for them to express thanks to Mr Xi and the Communist party.

However, the backlash online forced officials to scrub the original media reports on “gratitude education” from news sites.

“Next the government should apologise to people as soon as possible. It’s time to reflect and find people who are responsible for today’s situation,” Fang Fang, a well-known author and former director of the Hubei Writers’ Association, wrote on Weibo, the social media platform.

“What should I be thankful for?” wrote another Weibo user, noting that he had not received his government benefits and was having to pay high prices for food during the crisis. “Please go back to wherever you came from, OK? Thanks”.

The criticism came as video footage circulated online that appeared to show Wuhan residents shouting from their flats at vice-premier Sun Chunlan, who was on a tour demonstrating the success of quarantine measures in the area.

“It’s fake, it’s fake!” residents screamed from their balconies, as the entourage moved between the buildings.

Residents in Wuhan and Hubei province — an estimated 55m people — have been under strict quarantine since late January.

The Communist party has unleashed a propaganda campaign after allowing some space for criticism of its handling of the crisis. It has cast Mr Xi as the only person capable of leading the country through a health crisis that has killed more than 3,000 in mainland China and infected over 80,000.

The Communist party’s publicity department has even published a book lauding Mr Xi and the party as global leaders in the response to the outbreak.

But the effort has been marred by blunders.

“Internal directives from press control officials now suggest this has been a full-blown public opinion crisis for the party, and that the wound was self-inflicted,” China Media Project, a Hong Kong-based research programme focused on the Chinese press, said of the “gratitude education” incident.

“The ‘gratitude education’ narrative has already backfired,” said King-wa Fu, an associate professor at the University of Hong Kong’s Journalism and Media Studies Centre.

The Communist party has been struggling to control the narrative of the outbreak since the early days of the crisis.

Mr Wang was appointed as Wuhan’s top official in February after his predecessor Ma Guoqiang was fired following criticism of his early handling of the coronavirus outbreak.

The death in February of Wuhan doctor Li Wenliang, who was censured by local officials for reporting the outbreak in early January, led to a fervent public outcry. Many social media users in China have held up Li’s death as a symbol of mismanagement by authorities. The party, however, has sought to use him as a representative of China’s selfless fight against the outbreak.

Additional reporting by Xinning Liu in Beijing

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