A Chinese newspaper fat shamed Greta Thunberg – and she didn’t hesitate to take them down

Greta Thunberg says she’s adding an attempt by Chinese state media to “fat-shame” her to her resume...

The 18-year-old was recently attacked by China Daily – a newspaper owned by the ruling Communist Party – over her criticism of the nation’s carbon emissions.

The outlet mocked her weight, and bizarrely called her the “environmental princess”.

“Although she claims to be vegetarian, judging from the results of her growth, her carbon emissions are actually not low,” said writer Tang Ge.

On Friday she hit back, tweeting: “Being fat-shamed by Chinese state owned media is a pretty weird experience even by my standards. But it’s definitely going on my resume.”

The original article was widely shared on Chinese social media, where there was a concerted effort to question why Thunberg is not more vocal about Japan’s plan to release treated wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the sea.

The Chinese anger seems to have been sparked by a tweet she poster earlier this month.

:: Here’s 7 of Greta Thunberg’s top Twitter takedowns

She - rightly - pointed out that unless the manufacturing powerhouse “drastically changes course”, the climate crisis cannot be solved.

She was even-handed in her criticism, however, and later posted a video showing how the emissions of the US since 1750 are greater than any other country.

Her supporters quickly leapt to her defence:

It’s not the first time she’s rubbed China up the wrong way. She was previously attacked over her support for jailed Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong.

To be honest, we’re surprised the Chinese state is slinging fat jibes anywhere, given censors banned the release of a Winnie the Pooh film in 2018 because of unflattering comparisons by some citizens between the portly yellow bear and President Xi Jinping.

The comparison started when Xi visited the US in 2013, and people said a picture of him alongside Barack Obama resembled Pooh and Tigger.