Beijing (AsiaNews) - The Chinese People's Daily, the official organ of the Communist Party, has fallen for the mockery of the American satirical magazine "The Onion" and published with great fanfare the story of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, chosen by the magazine as the "sexiest man alive" for the 2012 edition. After grasping the global irony, the editor's office for the online edition of the Daily took down the story: a link is left - though a dead one - in the Korean edition.
The most embarrassing thing is that the newspaper of the CCP added to the story dozens of photos of Kim, without realizing the irony of the American text. Some parts, added as captions, read: "This heartthrob from Pyongyang is every woman's dream."
The Chinese newspaper quotes the The Onion's head of fashion and entertainment, Maissa Zweibe-Blake, who says: "He has the rare ability to be both totally adorable and totally macho. And it is this quality which makes him the man every woman wants and every man wants to be."
"The Onion" is not new to such gigs, having already proclaimed as the "sexiest men" Bashar Assad, the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski and Bernie Madoff, the Wall Street swindler. After realizing it had convinced the Chinese newspaper, a banner appeared on the magazine's website: "For more on the story, visit our friends at the People's Daily in China, a proud Communist subsidiary of The Onion. Exemplary reportage, comrades."