The news of the purge and reported execution of North Korea's defense minister, Hyon Yong-chol, was not searchable on China's dominant search engine Baidu Thursday, suggesting that China's Internet authorities might have blocked it.

   Searches by Yonhap News Agency for "Hyon Yong-chol" or "North Korea's Hyon Yong-chol" on the Baidu portal site produced no results as of 3:40 p.m. on Thursday.

   However, a search of "defense minister" produced some results for news about Hyon.

   South Korea's intelligence agency told lawmakers on Wednesday that Hyon was executed for showing disloyalty to the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

   If confirmed, it will mark another example of Kim's brutal nature in handling top officials, following the stunning execution of his once-powerful uncle Jang Song-thaek in 2013.

   Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters on Wednesday afternoon that, "I have seen media reports, but we have no information on that."

   Lu Chao, a research fellow of Korean studies at the Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences, told Chinese state-run Global Times newspaper that the news of Hyon's purge and execution was not credible.

   An Internet survey of about 6,000 Internet users by the Global Times showed that more than half of the respondents said they don't believe the news of Hyon's execution. (Yonhap)