The video footages of the members of the British Parliament have become popular among Chinese netizens after they went viral on China's social media, with thousands of Net users making hilarious memes inspired by the debates and showing keen interest in the debate system.
Many video clips were posted on the Web page with the hashtag "Prime Minister's Question Time (PMQs)" on Sina Weibo and the page has been viewed for 330 million times as of press time.
One of the most popular video clips that has been made into numerous memes by Chinese netizens is about British Prime Minister Theresa May's mocking of Opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn for an economic slip during a PMQs session in November 2016, in which May said that "I think, given that he can't differentiate between the IMF and the IFS, it's probably a good job he's sitting there and I'm standing here."
Chinese netizens took screenshots of May's expression during the debate and added annotations like "you idiot had better go die by challenging me this way" and "I am the best."
The video footages from the PMQs are also popular on Bilibili, China's video-sharing website that features the "bullet-screen" function, which allows users to write comments that float across the screen simultaneously.
Some active politicians, such as Corbyn and Dennis Skinner, a British Labour politician who has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Bolsover since 1970, have even won several fans who sent bullet subtitles to applaud their appearance or speeches on video sites such as Bilibili and youku.com.
A Net user even posted a question on zhihu.com, a popular Chinese question-and-answer website, asking why the PMQs looks like a "cross talk comedy."
An article published on qq.com gave detailed answers to the question, saying that this democratic practice of debates has existed for decades in the country and looks like a political performance with sharp and humorous remarks.
A video that uses former British prime minister David Cameron as an example of how to tease others and respond to others' teasing has been watched by 7,727 times as of press time, and similar videos such as "British parliament: the most miraculous parliament in the world" have also garnered thousands of hits.
PMQs gives MPs the chance to question the country's prime minister and it takes place at midday every Wednesday when the Commons is sitting, according to an introduction from the website of the British parliament.
