The Fabricator

胡编 (Hú Biān): the fabricator

This is the nickname for Hu Xijin (胡锡进), Chief Editor of the Global Times, a daily tabloid owned by Party-run People's Daily. In Chinese, the character 编 (bīan) has a number of meanings, dependent on context. While it means edit in the word for “editor” (编辑 bīanjí), it can also mean “to invent/fabricate”, as it does in an idiom meaning “to recklessly sow falsehoods” (胡编乱造 húbīanluànzào). The character combination 胡编 can sound like “Editor Hu” or it can sound like “recklessly sow falsehoods.”