Reports and discussions on the China-built audit office collapse vanish from Chinese platforms.
2025.04.01
Rescue workers survey the site of an under-construction building collapse in Bangkok on March 29, 2025, a day after an earthquake struck central Myanmar and Thailand.
Rescue workers survey the site of an under-construction building collapse in Bangkok on March 29, 2025, a day after an earthquake struck central Myanmar and Thailand.
TAIPEI, Taiwan – The collapse of a China-built skyscraper in Bangkok has reignited long-standing concerns over construction safety and Beijing’s ability to police quality standards in its overseas projects. Yet in China, those conversations were quickly silenced.
A 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck Myanmar and neighboring countries, including Thailand, on Friday. Among the damage was a 32-story office tower in Bangkok that crumbled entirely. The building was being constructed by the China Railway No. 10 Engineering Group, a subsidiary of a Chinese state-owned enterprise, as part of a joint venture.
News of the collapse spread rapidly on Chinese social media, where users began questioning the structural integrity of Chinese-led projects abroad. But the discussion didn’t last long. Posts were deleted, search results filtered, and even official news reports quietly removed.
One article titled “Under-construction audit building collapses in quake, Thai contractor faces liquidity crisis” published by Chinese outlet Sina Finance, for instance, was removed from the platform’s website after a short-lived stay.
Chinese state-run outlets such as People’s Daily and CCTV both published reports on the collapse on the same day, but the links to the reports are no longer accessible.
Searches for collapse-related keywords on Chinese social media platforms also yielded no results, suggesting that relevant content has been removed or suppressed.
Keyword searches found no result related to China’s construction of the Bangkok audit office building on Chinese social platform Weibo.
Keyword searches found no result related to China’s construction of the Bangkok audit office building on Chinese social platform Weibo.
‘Tofu-dreg project’
Construction of the new premises for Thailand’s state audit agency was overseen by state-owned China Railway No. 10 Engineering Group, which secured the building contract in 2020 as part of a consortium, according to Seatao, a Chinese site that reports on Beijing’s Belt & Road global infrastructure plan.
It said the 32-story tower was the largest building project undertaken by the group. The consortium included the Thai construction company, Italian-Thai Development Company.
On Sunday, Thailand’s Industry Minister Akanat Promphan, who inspected the scene, said the cause of the building collapse could stem from flawed materials, poor design or bad construction. An investigation is underway.
Wang Kuo-Chen, assistant research fellow at Taiwan’s Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research, shares a similar view.
“None of the surrounding buildings in Bangkok collapsed – only that one did,” he said. “Moreover, the way it collapsed was extremely dramatic; it was pulverized rather than tilting to one side. This is a classic sign of substandard construction and cost-cutting,” Wang said, using the term “tofu-dreg project.”
Derived from “tofu dregs” – a soft, crumbly food – the phrase refers to poorly built structures that are weak and prone to collapse.
In the summer of 1998, China experienced severe flooding, and during his inspection of the breached levees in Jiujiang, former Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji angrily criticized the collapsed floodwall as a “tofu-dreg project.”
Since then, the term has been widely adopted in Chinese media to describe substandard construction, often associated with corruption and regulatory failures.
“In recent years, the so-called high-speed rail miracle and China’s advancements in high technology have gradually overshadowed the impression of tofu-dreg projects,” Wang said. “However, the collapse of this audit building has reminded people that the high-tech reputation might just be inflated hype.”
The Chinese embassy in Thailand has not responded to Radio Free Asia’s request for comments.
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Long-standing censorship
But insights, including Wang’s, find no place to thrive in China. Beijing has a long-standing pattern of tightly controlling public discourse after major accidents, especially those involving construction quality and public safety.
In the wake of deadly incidents, online discussions are often swiftly censored, with keywords blocked, social media posts deleted, and news coverage heavily restricted.
After a 2021 gas explosion in Shiyan, Hubei Province, which killed 25 people, posts demanding accountability were quickly taken down, and online discussions were muted.
Similarly, when a hotel being used as a COVID-19 quarantine site collapsed in Quanzhou in 2020, killing 29, authorities removed posts questioning construction practices and safety oversight.
A 2015 landslide in Shenzhen, triggered by a pile of construction waste, and the 2009 collapse of a newly built 13-story apartment building in Shanghai, also saw online censorship of posts highlighting regulatory failures.
One of the most prominent examples remains the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, where the collapse of poorly constructed school buildings sparked public outrage. Parents who demanded answers were silenced, and independent reporting was swiftly curtailed.
Tzeng Wei-Feng, an associate researcher with Taiwan’s National Chengchi University Institute of International Relations, said the widespread media coverage of the collapse of the Bangkok skyscraper is likely to deal a major blow to China’s reputation in Southeast Asian infrastructure development.
In recent years, China has significantly expanded its infrastructure and construction investments across Southeast Asia, primarily through its Belt and Road Initiative, also known as BRI, that is intended to advance China’s economic interests globally.
“Southeast Asian nations might reassess their collaborations with Chinese firms, scrutinizing project details more carefully,” Tzeng said.
Edited by Taejun Kang and Stephen Wright.