With dismay, many Chinese have responded to the news that the 39 dead in England come from China. Although a spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry in Beijing said on Friday, it has not yet been decided beyond doubt whether the dead men and women are actually Chinese citizens. But many of their compatriots are already debating in the net.
"My hands are shaking," writes a user named Yang-Yu-Ting on short message service Weibo: "I can not believe that's true." Another user asks, "Does anyone really have to emigrate illegally (from China) these days?" A third user called Yizhi Yiyuan writes: "Are not there enough good jobs in China?"
According to the Beijing "Global Times" was the message on the short message service Weibo to Thursday evening more than 600 million times clicked and commented 149,000 times.
The bewilderment seems all the greater, as in the morning - before the Chinese origin of the victims was known - quite different comments were read: "China is so good," someone had written there, apparently on the assumption that the dead came from another country. "Scary," wrote a user named Xiong Baoling, "I hope these people do not come to China."
Even in 2000, when 58 Chinese migrants were found dead in a container in England, the consternation was great. At the time, however, many seemed to understand why people from China would take the risk and cost of fleeing to Europe.
Debate on the Internet does not seem to be strictly censored
At that time, according to a World Bank estimate, 224 million Chinese were living on less than a dollar a day. Today, China is the second largest economy in the world. There are still very poor and backward regions in China, but by 2020, the government wants to completely eradicate absolute poverty in the country - a goal that international experts consider achievable.
Chinese media reported cautiously on the news from London on Thursday and Friday, and often only Western news reports were repeated. Unlike usual controversial reports, the debate on the subject on the Internet does not seem to be strictly censored.
However, a letter from Hu Xijin, the prominent editor-in-chief of the Global Times, has caused a lack of understanding. Hu, too, was "saddened and shocked" by the news, but then asked the question: "Why do such disasters always happen in the UK, but not in other European countries or America?" In fact, similar tragedies have occurred in other countries, such as in the summer of 2015, when 71 deaths were found in a refrigerated container in Austria.
People are touched by the dealings of the British authorities
Chinese people are impressed by how the British authorities deal with the disaster in Essex - incidentally, an indication of how many users in China pursue foreign media that are blocked on the Internet and accessible only via so-called VPN tunnels: "In the BBC I saw police officers mourn as the semi-trailer was driven away, "commented one user. "The (people there) really have respect for life."
Video: Police comment on corpses in trucks
AP
Another Weibo user noticed that the British police had announced that they would take the dead "one after the other, undisturbed and dignified" out of the container. "The British even held a ceremony for the 39 dead, which touched me."
All the more critical a user named "MOPVER" sees some cynical comments of his own compatriots: "While mourn the (British) people who are not even from their own country, some netizens here scold the dead as traitors who deserved nothing better."