There was probably a misunderstanding:
According to the Chinese news agency Xinhua, the China Internet Network Information Center (CINNC) had said that Chinese domain owners lost about 10,000 .com domains due to disruption caused to domain name servers by the recent Taiwan earthquake.
The news report was quickly picked up by media around the world. However, the CINNC denied it made the remarks which led to the original report. Mr. Liu Ningbo from China’s largest domain registration provider (HiChina Web Solutions Ltd.), said the losses are possible only in theory but not in practice. Owners of .com domains are reminded at least 30 days before their domain expires. Even after the expiration date, domain names are frozen and kept for one or two months after the expiry date (called the “redemption period”), which is in line with .com industry practices.
More info:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2...ent_776083.htm
Apparently the earthquake had affected access to China-based DNS servers, a disruption which made thousands of .com domains that are hosted in China temporarily inaccessible. The domains themselves were not affected.