NOISY INVASION

Hong Kong democracy protester was ambushed by masked Chinese in Australia

By Ben Smee and Ben Doherty

The allegations made by Jack* match a trend of Chinese noisy intimidation and surveillance on Australian soil. 

A “frontline” Hong Kong democracy protester who recently fled the territory in fear of his safety says he was ambushed and chased in an Australian city by a group of masked Chinese men.
“They were nearby my house and waiting for me,” Jack* told Guardian Australia. 

“They knew my address, they knew where I was going to be.
“I think they don’t want to hurt me, they just want to make me scared. It was like intimidation, a message that ‘we know where you are’.”
Guardian Australia has been able to confirm some elements of Jack’s story, including that he arrived in Australia a few months ago and has attended pro-Hong Kong demonstrations since arriving. 

He has since reported the incident to police.
Human rights advocates and China experts say the claims match a trend of intimidation and surveillance on Australian soil. 

Several recent incidents – including a brawl at the University of Queensland where pro-China participants were praised by the consulate – have raised concerns about the extraterritorial activities of China, including the state’s pursuit of critics beyond its borders.
Jack told Guardian Australia he expected to be safe in hiding in Australia and that he had no choice but to leave Hong Kong after being arrested twice earlier this year and seemingly targeted by Hong Kong police since. 

Police also twice searched his parents’ home.
“I love Hong Kong and wish I was in Hong Kong but I felt I had no choice,” Jack said. 

“They came with a warrant to search my house.”
Jack said he was beaten when he was first arrested and then held in a police station in Hong Kong, in a room with no cameras, for 48 hours before being charged with unlawful assembly.“
My family and the lawyer went to the police station to look for me but the police said that I wasn’t there,” he said. 

“It was like torture inside. They kept me awake, they kept checking on me every hour. They splashed water on me. So I was soaked in ... cold water. They turned down the aircon to be a lot colder than normal.”
After several months, Jack said he and other protesters became increasingly concerned for their safety. 

They began to carry around “death notes” with messages to family members.
“I was one of the most frontline protesters,” he said. 

“One of the more radical in a way. Most of my group members are willing to sacrifice themselves, willing to be injured or arrested, and so they all kept a death note in their pocket.
“Because I was one of the frontline protesters ... I got more scared of the police and what they might do to me.”
Jack has been supported by a network of Hong Kong expats and supporters since arriving in Australia. 

He said he did not expect to be approached by the masked Chinese men, who followed him home after an Australian rally.

“No, it’s not unsafe in Australia,” he said.
“[The Chinese] just want to make you scared.
“I have never seen them again. Maybe they just want to make you scared, don’t say anything bad about China or anything. If I’m scared, I’m not a protester.”

Elaine Pearson, the Australia director for Human Rights Watch, said allegations of masked assailants assaulting protesters on Australia soil were disturbing.
“This person escaped Hong Kong and yet it seems like the surveillance apparatus of the Chinese state is alive and well right here in Australia,” she said. 

“Up until now, we’ve seen intimidation, harassment and surveillance of students and activists protesting on university campuses but brazen acts of physical violence are a real step up.
“The new foreign interference laws are supposed to protect people from such acts and send a message to foreign governments and their proxies not to interfere. But these allegations call into question whether that message is getting through. Police should thoroughly investigate these allegations and hold the perpetrators to account.”
Drew Pavlou, a University of Queensland student who is taking legal action against the Chinese consul general in Brisbane, Xu Jie, said that last week he began receiving threats at his home address.


Drew Pavlou@DrewPavlou
Really terrified -- my family and I have been receiving death threats for months due to my pro Hong Kong activism in Brisbane Australia . But this is a new escalation -- received this threatening letter in mail today, meaning the address of my family home has been compromised.

531
8:10 AM - Nov 21, 2019

“To me, it seems like it must be some sort of coordinated approach,” Pavlou said. 

“I had a letter sent to my house, it was a clear message that they know my address. It’s not just heat of the moment, two opposing sides clashing at a protest, it’s planned.”

The artist Badiucao says Beijing’s ‘sharp power’ is manipulating members of the Chinese community in Australia.

Death threats in Melbourne
The artist Badiucao, who has been an outspoken critic of Beijing through his artwork and his ABC documentary China’s Artful Dissident, said Beijing’s “sharp power” was manipulating members of the Chinese community in Australia.
“No one who has a different voice against Beijing feels safe in Australia,” he said. 

“Like the Hong Kong [protester], I certainly do not feel safe either. I have experienced being followed by Chinese men several times and a possible home invasion.
“Death threats have been sent to me on a daily basis via social media and the people behind those trolls are not just movement-hired bots but real Chinese students living and studying in Melbourne, the city I see as home now. But I am not scared of those threats, I just feel sorry for those Chinese kids being brainwashed and missing the chance to see the truth of China, Hong Kong and the world.”
*Jack’s name has been changed

Hong Kong Is Winning the Global Public-Opinion War With Beijing

The city’s protest movement has unofficial representatives, crowdfunded advertising, viral videos, and much else that has caught Chinese off guard.

By CHRIS HORTON

The Hong Kong pro-democracy campaigners Joshua Wong (far left) and Denise Ho (left) testify in Congress.

TAIPEI—Months of protests in Hong Kong have pitted residents of all ages and backgrounds against their police force, local government, and the Chinese Communist Party, and there is no question of who is less powerful.
Yet in a parallel battle over international public opinion, it is Beijing and its minions that are outgunned. 

This weekend that mismatch was once again highlighted by the thousands of people in cities across Australia, Asia, Europe and North America coming out in support of Hong Kong, but also in a much broader sense, against the CCP. 

Here in Taipei alone, thousands of Taiwanese and Hong Kongers marched through the streets on a rainy Sunday, told by Denise Ho, one of the most visible faces among Hong Kong’s unofficial diplomatic corps, that her home and theirs shared the same fight against Beijing.
These latest worldwide, pro–Hong Kong rallies are the most recent iteration of what supporters of repressed groups in East Turkestan and Tibet, as well as those who back Taiwan’s sovereignty, have all struggled to do: Mobilize large communities internationally to denounce the Chinese Communist Party.

The relative success of Hong Kong’s protest movement is all the more significant because it’s occurring alongside Beijing expanding its propaganda efforts globally, as state-owned outlets trumpet China’s vision of the world in multiple languages. 

This global campaign is the biggest challenge to China’s rulers by the territory since 1989, when, still a British colony, its residents took part in demonstrations in solidarity with protesters in Tiananmen Square, while also providing financial and material support.
From Oslo to Osaka, Congress to the United Nations, Taiwan to Twitter, Hong Kongers have taken their DIY approach to protest to a global audience. 

Celebrity supporters testify in high-profile settings; highly targeted, crowdfunded media campaigns aim to keep the issue in the spotlight; and viral videos, catchy slogans, and even a movement anthem and flag help magnify the message on social media.

On September 17, a panel of witnesses including Ho and pro-democracy campaigner Joshua Wong testified before the Congressional-Executive Commission on China in Washington, the latest in a string of public appearances for the two activists around the globe. 

Ho has been especially active, shuttling back and forth between Hong Kong and elsewhere to promote her message of resisting Beijing to receptive crowds, especially in Taiwan.
Earlier this month in Taipei, Ho spoke and performed at the Asia installment of the Oslo Freedom Forum. 

Only days before, she had been in Melbourne, where she appeared in public with the Chinese dissident artist Badiucao, designer of the unofficial Hong Kong protest movement flag. 

In Taipei, Ho took the stage to a screaming crowd of hundreds of admirers, their phones raised to record her appeal to democratic Taiwan, whose way of life is also under threat from China. Describing the struggle of Hong Kongers, who cannot rely on their own government to counter China’s narrative, Ho struck a pragmatic tone. 

“When the system fails us,” she said to the attentive crowd, “we take things into our own hands.”
Wong, who rose to international fame as one of the leaders of the pro-democracy, Occupy-style Umbrella Movement of 2014, has also been busy on the diplomatic front. 

Prior to his congressional testimony, he stopped in Germany, urging its government to cease exporting crowd-control weapons to Hong Kong and to put human rights in Hong Kong on the agenda in Berlin’s trade talks with Beijing. (Germany's foreign minister, Heiko Maas, met with Wong on September 10.)
Wong’s German visit came after he and fellow activists visited Taiwan, where he implored the ruling party to pass an asylum law that would make it easier for Hong Kongers to seek refuge here, territory the CCP claims despite having never controlled it.
Although neither Wong nor Ho has been appointed by the current protest movement to represent it abroad—a remarkable feat of the demonstrations is that they have been largely leaderless—the general consensus in Hong Kong seems to be that they are well-known names and faces who offer the advantage of signal-boosting.
While in Taipei mid-month, Ho told me she thought of herself as a mediator or spokesperson for the movement at large. 

“I’m not seeing myself as a leader of any sort,” she said. 

“I am, on the other hand, one of the participants of this movement: I have been on the streets with these people. I have been teargassed.” 

She added that, as a “recognizable face,” she saw herself “as a conduit that can bring stories of these people to the world.”
In July, Ho scored one of the first public-relations victories abroad for Hong Kong’s protesters when, speaking at the United Nations in Geneva, she described growing police brutality against Hong Kongers and called on the UN to remove China from its Human Rights Council. 

During her remarks, she was interrupted twice by China’s representative to the body on procedural grounds. 

More recently, while in Washington, Ho and Wong were joined by other activists and congressional leaders for the launch of the Hong Kong Democracy Council, a D.C.-based lobbying group for the movement.
Ho and Wong are far from the only diplomats working on behalf of the movement. 

In June, a crowdfunding drive raised hundreds of thousands of dollars from more than 20,000 donors, paying for full-page ads in more than 10 major international newspapers, urging the G20 summit in Osaka to raise Hong Kong’s plight. 

How much impact the campaign had is unclear, but Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe did bring up Hong Kong’s protests with Chinese dictator Xi Jinping when the two met on the sidelines of the summit. 

Another crowdfunded ad campaign is under way, this time targeting papers on October 1 to mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, a particularly sensitive date for the CCP. 

The campaign is not the only bit of rain to fall on the party’s parade—Hong Kong’s government announced on September 18 that it had canceled the fireworks show planned for the anniversary.
Unlike East Turkestan or Tibet, both of which the Communists forcibly took control of in the 1950s, Hong Kong was handed over peacefully by the British in 1997, following 150 years of colonial rule. 

At the heart of the agreement between London and Beijing was an arrangement whereby Hong Kong would maintain its separate political and economic system and enjoy “a high degree of autonomy,” with Beijing handling national security and diplomacy.
This “one country, two systems” arrangement has allowed Hong Kong to have a free internet, for example, whereas Beijing heavily restricts the web within China and even went so far as to either partially or completely shut down the internet in East Turkestan—the size of western Europe—for 10 months.
Today, many Hong Kongers worry that their internet access may go the way of China’s, adding a sense of urgency to their attempts to use it to organize themselves and to reach the outside world in order to spread their message and counter Beijing’s narrative. 

Twitter, in particular, has become an important virtual battleground for foreign hearts and minds.
The Chinese authorities appear to agree. 

On September 3, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute published an investigation into the methods used in a disinformation campaign aimed at Hong Kong that Twitter has attributed to Beijing, a first. “Efforts by the Chinese government to leverage Twitter to redirect and recast political developments in Hong Kong—both in terms of covert information operations and through its state media—highlight just how powerful Twitter is as a tool of statecraft,” Danielle Cave, deputy director of the ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre, told me.
Hong Kong’s protesters have also recognized the global influence of Twitter in the information domain and are themselves trying to use Twitter diplomacy to share breaking developments and to connect with journalists, Cave noted. 

This includes providing images and videos of events on the ground, often in real time, and generating new hashtags, including ones that highlight violent incidents and police brutality. (The protesters’ tool of choice for coordinating rallies has thus far been the encrypted messaging app Telegram, but that can’t match Twitter’s global reach or public-broadcasting capabilities, nor does it have the ear of global stakeholders that the protesters seek to engage.)
Hong Kongers have, so far, proved a nimble David to China’s clumsy Goliath. 

But the CCP does occasionally score points. 

Donald Trump, for example, parroted the Chinese government’s line on the Hong Kong protests when he called them “riots” in early August, a characterization that many viewed as a win for Beijing.
In other incidents, however, the tendency of Chinese nationalism to backfire on the foreign stage has hampered the Communist cause. 

Among these incidents are violent Chinese-student reactions to pro–Hong Kong demonstrations at Australian universities, with the Chinese embassy expressing support for the students’ actions on social media afterward. 

Debate in Australia regarding the ability of China to control public speech there has since intensified. Elsewhere, Montreal’s Pride parade excluded Hong Kong participants after receiving threats from pro-Communists.

At the parade, many onlookers were aghast when, during the moment of silence for those who have died from HIV/AIDS, Chinese participants sang their national anthem.
“The most basic weakness of the external communications of the Chinese party-state is the fact that foreign audiences, and their values and interests, are never truly considered,” David Bandurski, co-director of the China Media Project, told me. 

“Sure, the messages are directed at foreigners, but the language is still the internal and insular language of the party-state.”
In this sense, Bandurski said, these propaganda efforts are not really external at all.
“Try as it might to raise the volume on China's singular, restrained voice, the party-state is still talking to itself, or shouting at its own wall,” Bandurski said. 

“The louder that voice becomes, the more uncompromising and aggressive it sounds.”

World's Most Creative Revolutionaries

100 days in: How Hong Kongers sustain protests with creativity

AFP
This picture taken on June 22, 2019 shows a man taking photographs of artwork and messages in support of protesters opposed to a China extradition law posted on the ‘Lennon Wall’ outside the government headquarters in Hong Kong. 

HONG KONG, Sept 16 — With Hong Kong shaken by 100 days of huge pro-democracy protests, activists have adopted a host of creative ways to fuel their movement away from the barricades.
From laser pen light shows, to flashmob singalongs and human chains, we look at some of the inventive methods embraced by a movement that shows no signs of abating.

1. Flashmob singalongs
Music has long played a prominent role in Hong Kong’s years of democracy rallies.
The tune that received the most traction early on in this summer’s protests was the catchy Christian hymn Sing Hallelujah to the Lord as well as Do you hear the people sing? from the musical Les Miserables.
But in the last fortnight a new anthem has been embraced with gusto.
“Glory to Hong Kong” was written by an anonymous composer and has gone viral, its defiant lyrics repeatedly belted out at protests, nightly flashmob concerts in city malls and even football matches.

2. Laser shows
Laser pointers were initially used by frontline protesters to indicate police positions, distract officers and stop people from taking photos or videos.
But they were adopted en masse after a student leader with 10 laser pens in his bag was arrested for possession of an offensive weapon.
Since then demonstrators have held “lightshows” outside of police stations and at most public gatherings, lending the protests a somewhat surreal disco-vibe once the sun sets.

3. Human chains
Human chains were first adopted in late August on the 30th anniversary of the Baltic Way, when more than a million people linked arms in huge anti-Soviet Union demonstrations.
The symbol caught on. 

Tens of thousands have taken part in human chains across the city in recent weeks, some formed on top of famous hills such as the Peak and Lion Rock. 

Secondary school students have also formed them each morning before classes.

4. Crowd-funding
Several online crowd-funding campaigns have been hugely successful.This picture taken on September 10, 2019 shows mooncakes, adorned with a popular slogan from recent pro-democracy protests, being prepared for the annual mid-autumn festival at a bakery in Hong Kong. 

Two campaigns raised over HK$21 million (RM11.3 million) to place adverts in major international newspapers.
“By placing ads internationally, we can break through the filter of the media and show the world the truth underneath the government propaganda,” a campaign co-organiser, who gave his name as Taylor, told AFP.
Other campaigns have raised money to build a four-metre-tall statue called “Lady Liberty Hong Kong” and to provide defence funds for the some 1,400 people arrested.

5. Lennon Walls
Plastered in colourful sticky-notes, posters and slogans, “Lennon Walls” have sprung up in more than a hundred locations across the city, often in pedestrian tunnels or near subway stations.
The first Hong Kong wall appeared during huge pro-democracy protests in 2014 and was a local take on a public graffiti wall in Prague that appeared after the 1980 murder of John Lennon.
When crowds of government supporters tore down a Lennon Wall outside the city’s parliament early on in this summer’s protests, democracy activists simply created new ones in their local neighbourhoods. 

Walls are still being torn down by opponents but they reappear within hours.

6. 10pm chanting
Hong Kongers have taken to shouting protest slogans from their apartments each night at 10pm, inspired by cacerolazos, a form of protest that emerged in authoritarian Chile during the 1970s and has since been adopted by multiple dissent movements.
In a city renowned for the highest concentration of skyscrapers in the world, the chanting is particularly effective, with popular slogans such as “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution now” and “No rioters, only tyranny” bouncing off buildings and echoing through neighbourhoods.

7. Mooncakes
Traditionally given during the mid-autumn festival, these dense pastries have been given a protest makeover. 

One bakery has sold tens of thousands of cakes which sport popular protest slogans on their crusts.

8. Protest art
Painting, calligraphy, comic strips, sculptures — Hong Kongers have been working around the clock to provide an artistic backdrop to their protests.
Much of the art is distributed in a highly modern fashion — shared on online forums or pinged to people’s phones using Bluetooth and Airdrop.
It is not unusual for someone’s phone to receive multiple digital flyers and posters each day, especially on the subway.
Soon the same artworks are printed and placed on the city’s Lennon Walls, which have become a constantly evolving canvas of dissent.

9. Flags
Small groups of protesters have waved the flags of Britain, colonial era Hong Kong and the United States.
But by far the most common flag is the “wilted bauhinia” — a twist on Hong Kong’s official flag, a white bauhinia flower on a red backdrop.
The new flag has turned the backdrop black, to reflect the mood of the streets, and the bauhinia flower is wilted and blood-stained.
Australian-based Chinese dissident artist Badiucao, who draws daily cartoons for the protest movement, has also created a flag of rainbow-coloured squares, meant to symbolise the Lennon Walls.
Another popular emblem directed at Beijing is dubbed “Chinazi” — a red flag with yellow stars in the shape of a swastika.

10. ‘Be water’
Inventiveness has been a core principle of the protests themselves with the phrase “Be water” commonly chanted.
The slogan references a philosophy of unpredictability espoused by local kung fu legend Bruce Lee and encourages protesters to keep mobile in a bid to stretch police resources and avoid mass arrests.
Protesters have also found creative ways to hold rallies that are banned, portraying them instead as opportunities to go window shopping, hold picnics or gather for religious meetings. 

'This Is a Fight.'

Meet Badiucao, the Dissident Cartoonist Taking on the Chinese Government

BY AMY GUNIA / HONG KONG

Chinese cartoonist Badiucao standing behind his artwork titled 'Light' in his studio in Melbourne on May 28, 2019.

A giant tattoo of tiny man standing in front of an oncoming tank covers the entirety of one of artist Badiucao’s upper arms. 

It’s an inspired choice of ink for the Chinese artist who has earned both the fury of the Chinese Communist Party and excited comparisons to Banksy.
Images of the individual known to history as Tank Man flashed around the world on June 5, 1989, when the anonymous Beijing resident, clutching a shopping bag, faced down a column of advancing tanks. 

The night before, troops had rolled into Tiananmen Square and brutally suppressed a weeks-long, peaceful occupation by students and workers calling for political reform. 

Thousands are thought to have died.
“I wanted [the Tank Man tattoo] on my right arm, the arm that I use to draw,” Badiucao (pronounced ba-doo-chow) tells TIME. 

“It’s a personal reminder to keep having courage with my arm, with my hand, and with my pen.”
Born in China in 1986, Badiucao grew up in a society where all mention of the Tiananmen massacre is fanatically censored. 

He was in university in 2007, studying law, when he gathered with friends in his dormitory to watch what they thought was a Taiwanese rom com. 

In turned out that their copy had been doctored by activists intent on spreading awareness of the events of 1989—a few minutes into the film, the movie suddenly cut to a documentary about the massacre.
“It shocked me deeply,” he says. 

For Badiucao, it was the moment that started his politicization. 

He tried to find out information about Tiananmen, but was quickly stymied. 

“If I can’t see the truth about the country, how can I have hope for the country?”
Out of frustration, he started using his artistic talents to create satirical doodles. 

He had loved painting, drawing and photography as a child: now he used those skills to comment on the political situation in China, and dropped his plans to become a lawyer.
Badiucao comes from a family of artists — his grandfather and his great uncle were filmmakers in China during the 1930s and 1940s. 

As the political situation deteriorated in China in the 1950s, they both considered moving to Hong Kong or Taiwan, but ultimately decided to stay in their homeland. 

It’s a decision they paid for with their lives; both were persecuted and killed in an anti-intellectual crackdown, leaving Badiucao’s father orphaned as a young child.
“In my family, there’s a very clear message that to be an artist in China is dangerous,” he says.
So, in 2009, Badiucao packed his bags for Australia, where he got a masters degree and later naturalized. 

Today, the artist’s work encompasses all mediums, from fine to installation to performance to street art, but he says that everything he creates has a common theme.
“The message from me is always about promoting freedom of speech, advocating for human rights.”
He is best known for the cartoons he posts online, which often take aim at the Chinese government, like a drawing of Chinese dictator Xi Jinping hunting for Winnie the Pooh (the fictional creature was banned on the Chinese internet after a meme comparing Xi to Pooh went viral).
“Why are they censoring such an adorable animal?” the artist asks.

A cartoon drawn by Chinese dissident artist Badiucao

The artist, who now lives in Melbourne, shares much of his work on Twitter, which he started using after censors shut down his account on the Chinese microblogging site Weibo more than 30 times. Twitter is banned in China, but despite China’s Great Firewall, he’s sure that his artwork still reaches people at home who access the website via virtual private networks (VPNs).
“More and more websites, terms and photos are becoming ‘sensitive’ each year and have been added to censorship lists maintained by social media companies,” Yaqiu Wang, China Researcher at Human Rights Watch, tells TIME. 

But she says that creative work like Badiucao’s might be able to slip by the censorship apparatus.
“Netizens can still post about political sensitive topics through creative means,” Wang explains, “such as altering the images or replacing critical characters with characters that look alike or with characters that have the same pronunciations.”
For years, and even though he was no longer living in China, Badiucao attempted to conceal his identity, appearing at events in a ski mask. 

He had good reason to be fearful; others critical of the regime have faced severe punishments. 

Ai Wei Wei, who Badiucao worked for as an assistant at one point, has been imprisoned and hit with hefty tax evasion fines that were politically motivated. 

The political cartoonist Jiang Yefei was sentenced to six and a half years in prison last year for “subversion of state power.”
Badiucao finally unmasked himself on the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in June, when a documentary about him called China’s Artful Dissident came out. 

It had become terrifyingly clear to him that Beijing already knew his identity. 

Ahead of a planned exhibition in Hong Kong late last year, he began receiving threats. 

When several of his family members in China were detained by the police, he decided to cancel his trip to Hong Kong and call off his show, which was going to feature artwork like an installation made from neon lights depicting the late Nobel Prize winning Chinese political prisoner Liu Xiaobo.
Despite the danger he faces, Badiucao refuses to stand down, and although he wasn’t able to have his exhibition in Hong Kong, his work is now being featured across the city in another way. 

Since early June — when Hong Kong’s anti-government protests began — the artist has spent much of his time creating artwork to comment on the unrest and the government’s response to it. 

When Hong Kong’s top official, Chief Executive Carrie Lam, wept on television as she spoke about the sacrifices she had made for the city, the artist released a cartoon of the leader with a reptilian arm wiping away what many Hongkongers said were crocodile tears.

A Badicao cartoon depicting Carrie Lam, Hong Kong's Chief Executive
Demonstrations have now become a near daily occurrence in the city, and Badiucao’s art can often be seen at rallies, printed out and turned into posters, or taped onto one of the colorful “Lennon Walls” of protest messages and artwork that have popped up across the city. 

It inspires the protesters to keep fighting.
“Protest art serves the function of not only spreading the necessary political messages but also connecting movement participants’ emotions, which are pivotal in sustaining a movement,” Vivienne Chow, a journalist and cultural critic based in Hong Kong, tells TIME.
Although Badiucao can’t be in Hong Kong alongside the protesters, he is happy that his artwork has finally reached the city, even if it’s via the Internet instead of a gallery. 

As the Hong Kong protests enter their third month, he hopes that his work will continue motivating the protesters to carry on their resistance against what is perceived as Beijing’s tightening grip.
“What’s happening in Hong Kong is not just about Hong Kong, it’s also about every country that values freedom and democracy,” Badiucao says. 

“This is a fight, and it’s a meaningful fight.”

Freedom Fighter

Mysterious Chinese Political Cartoonist Badiucao Unmasked at Last

By Amy Qin

The dissident Chinese cartoonist Badiucao posted street art in Melbourne, Australia, on Monday, the day before the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown.

BEIJING — The political cartoonist Badiucao still remembers the sultry Shanghai afternoon when he stumbled upon a video about the Tiananmen massacre of 1989 — and his world turned upside down.
It was 2007, and he and his law school roommates had been watching a pirated movie when suddenly it cut to a documentary that was apparently spliced in. 

The three-hour film first showed crowds of young Chinese holding pro-democracy banners in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. 

Then Chinese army tanks rolled into the city and troops began firing on the people.
During the military campaign, which began on the night of June 3 and ended the next day, thousands were killed.

Badiucao in his storage container in Melbourne last week. Finding out the Chinese government had used violence against protesters, he said, was like “dropping from heaven to hell.”

The four roommates, all in their early 20s, sat in the dark, speechless. 

Until that moment, Badiucao recalled, he had been just another good, apolitical kid from a working-class Shanghai family. 

He was only 3 years old during the crackdown, but seeing the soldiers turn their guns on the students and civilians, he said, felt personal, like “dropping from heaven to hell.”
The student protesters had been so young and carefree, he thought, he could easily have imagined himself there. 

Questions began racing through his mind: Why had he not learned about this before? 

What were the names of the victims? 

Was it even real?
“We were always told that this is a new era, we have left history behind and we have a good life,” Badiucao said in an interview from Melbourne, Australia, where he now lives. 

“But seeing the documentary made me believe that China was the same and under the control of the Communist Party, it would never change.”

A Badiucao cartoon of the Chinese intellectual and Nobel Peace laureate Liu Xiaobo and his wife, Liu Xia, that went viral after Mr. Liu’s death in 2017.

Badiucao’s political awakening explains to a degree why the ruling Communist Party goes to great lengths to quash discussion of the Tiananmen massacre, which could undermine its legitimacy. Badiucao is also an example of how some young Chinese — who are better educated and expect a fairer and more just society — are willing to take action in pursuit of such ideals, as have a group of Marxist students whose fight for labor rights has run into trouble.
In the decade since that life-changing afternoon, Badiucao (pronounced bah-diyoo-tsow) has tried to hold power to account through his satirical cartoons. 

He uses bold colors and images that are loud to take on everything from the Chinese leadership’s authoritarian tendencies to the complicity of Western companies in Chinese censorship.
The cartoonist first gained popularity by posting his work under the randomly chosen pseudonym “Badiucao” on the Chinese social media site Sina Weibo. 

But the authorities in China moved quickly to limit his reach his social media accounts have been shut down 37 times over the years. 

His main social media platform these days is Twitter, which is blocked in China.

Badiucao dressed up as “Tank Man,” an iconic figure from the Tiananmen protests, in a performance art piece in Adelaide, Australia, in 2016.

In one of his cartoons, called “Tiananmen Mother’s Day,” an older woman bends over to plant a red rose into a tank. 

Another features a simple line drawing of Liu Xiaobo, the Chinese intellectual and Nobel Peace laureate who helped negotiate an exit for student protesters in 1989 and later died in prison, and his wife, Liu Xia.
For a performance art piece marking the 29th anniversary of the crackdown last year, Badiucao called on people around the world to pose as “Tank Man” — the iconic and unidentified figure who confronted a column of tanks and has since become a symbol of peaceful resistance in the West. From Paris to Washington to Hong Kong, images of people in Tank Man’s outfit — a white shirt and black pants with a white bag in each hand — began circulating online under the hashtag #TankMan2018.
In an interview, Zhou Fengsuo, an organizer of the Tiananmen protests who also took part in the performance art piece, called Badiucao’s work “very courageous” and “important to the collective memory of Tiananmen.”

Badiucao has an image of Tank Man tattooed on his arm.

Xiao Qiang, founder of China Digital Times, which tracks Chinese media, said that the constant censorship of Badiucao’s cartoons was a testament to the power of imagery, particularly among young people.
“Unlike long theoretical articles, a good satire or cartoon has the potential to reach millions of young people,” said Mr. Xiao, whose website has published many of Badiucao’s cartoons. 

He also said the censorship suggested a deep-seated insecurity within the Chinese Communist Party that “the dictator cannot be laughed at.”
Until recently, Badiucao worked under complete anonymity. 

After finishing law school in Shanghai, he moved to Australia where he eventually obtained citizenship and got a job for a few years as a preschool teacher. 

He went to great lengths to hide his identity for the sake of his own safety and that of his family back in China; no one, not even his colleagues or his parents, knew that he was moonlighting as a dissident cartoonist.
“During the day, I worked, changed nappies and sang lullabies to the kids,” he said. 

“At night, I became a fighter in my little room, going through all the news of the day to find a topic to address with my pen.”
Badiucao now works on his art full time. 

But last November, just days before the opening of his first solo exhibition in Hong Kong, he learned that the authorities in Shanghai had uncovered his identity and approached several of his family members. 

They were asked to pass on a message to Badiucao: Cancel the show, or there will be trouble.
Together with the exhibition organizers, Badiucao eventually decided to call it off.
“I’m not brave, I call myself the most coward of the world’s dissident artists,” he said. 

“I choose to keep my identity hidden as much as I can while also making some noise with my art.”

Hong Kong arts centre cancels Chinese dissident author event

Exiled Chinese writer Ma Jian was due to promote his satiric novel China Dream

Ma Jian, who lives in London, writes dark satirical books about life in China.

A Hong Kong arts centre hosting the city’s high-profile literary festival has cancelled appearances by exiled Chinese writer Ma Jian, said the author, as Beijing tightens its grip on the semi-autonomous city.
It is the latest blow to freedom of speech in Hong Kong as concerns grow that liberties are under serious threat from an assertive China.
Ma, who now lives in London, writes dark and satirical works depicting life in China and his books are banned on the mainland.
He was due to promote his latest novel China Dream later this week, a title that plays on Chinese dictator Xi Jinping’s rhetoric of national rejuvenation and is described by publisher Penguin as “a biting satire of totalitarianism”.
The author announced on Twitter that his two speaking events had been cancelled by Tai Kwun arts centre, where the festival is held, not by festival organisers who he said were trying to find an alternative venue.
“Just been told that my two events at the Hong Kong International Literary Festival this week can no longer be held at Tai Kwun, where all the other events are taking place. An alternative venue will have to be found. No reason has been given to me yet,” he said in his tweet.
Hong Kong’s government says it wants to turn the city into an arts and culture hub, with Tai Kwun the result of a multimillion-dollar renovation of a colonial-era prison and police station, led by the government and the Hong Kong Jockey Club.
Tai Kwun and the Hong Kong International Literary Festival were unable to immediately comment.
Hong Kong has rights that are not enjoyed on the mainland, protected by an agreement made before the city was handed back to China by Britain in 1997, but there are fears they are being steadily eroded.

A highly anticipated art show by Chinese political cartoonist Badiucao was cancelled last week with Hong Kong organisers citing safety concerns due to “threats made by Chinese authorities relating to the artist”.

Hong Kong authorities also faced a major backlash when they denied a visa without explanation last month to a Financial Times journalist who had chaired a press club talk by a Hong Kong independence activist.
The Hong Kong literary festival attracts leading authors from around the world and this year features Scottish novelist Irvine Welsh and bestselling American author Cheryl Strayed.

Rogue Nation

Beijing Is Silencing Chinese-Australians
By ALEX JOSKE

Credit Sébastien Thibault
CANBERRA, Australia — On a September night in 2016, I took my seat at a theater in the heart of Canberra for a Chinese national day celebration organized by the pro-Beijing Chinese Students and Scholars Association. 

There was a commotion and all of the seats around me were suddenly filled by men in black suits communicating with walkie-talkies. 

They followed me into the bathroom and tried to have the theater’s security staff kick me out.
Earlier, I had reported for a student newspaper on Chinese government ties to the group and its efforts to censor anti-Communist Party material at my university. 

I later identified the men at the theater as members of the Chinese student association, and it was clear that the attempt to intimidate me was a result of my articles.
Beijing’s reach into Australia goes far beyond groups like the student association. 

Its interference in Australian society is becoming increasingly bolder. 

And as Australians debate how to respond, the voices of the Chinese-Australians alarmed by Beijing’s encroachment are being drowned out by an aggressive Chinese government campaign to silence critics here.
With so many Chinese-Australians left unheard, misunderstandings surrounding the Chinese-Australian community are rife. 

More than one million Australians claim Chinese ancestry, out of a total population of about 24 million.
The Chinese Communist Party is actively fostering in the Chinese-Australian community what the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, who died while in custody in China last year, called an “enemy mentality”: the idea that the liberal West is China’s enemy and that supporters of freedom are enemies, too. 

Those objecting to the Communist Party’s oppression, like pro-democracy activists, are widely referred to as “poison” or “hostile forces.”
Fear is among Beijing’s most potent weapons in silencing Chinese-Australians. 

Like me, other Chinese-Australian critics of Beijing are targets of threats and intimidation. 

Last year, a Sydney-based university professor, Feng Chongyi, was detained in China for a week. The Chinese-Australian artist Guo Jian was briefly detained in 2014 after creating a diorama of Tiananmen Square to commemorate the 1989 massacre.
China also monitors the social media accounts of dissidents in Australia, and many fear that their private messages and social networks might make them targets of the Chinese government. 

Badiucao, a Chinese-Australian cartoonist and street artist, has never revealed his face or real name out of fear.

Even those who avoid actively criticizing Beijing are affected. 

Last month, word spread of a Taiwanese waitress in Sydney who claimed that she had been asked by her boss at a Chinese hot-pot restaurant if she thought Taiwan belonged to China. 

“Definitely not,” she replied, and a few minutes later found herself without a job.
As part of Beijing’s campaign, Chinese-language media here, relied on by the many Chinese-Australians for whom English is a second language, are pressured into self-censoring. 

These news outlets avoid any criticism of the Communist Party. 

Beijing has also been quietly expanding its state-owned media across the globe, including into Australia, by buying stakes in local Chinese media. 

Posts on WeChat, a social media app owned by the Chinese conglomerate Tencent that is widely used among Australia’s Chinese, can be deleted at Beijing’s whim.
Beijing’s control of the Chinese-language news media helps to elevate the pro-Beijing voices here, while critics of Beijing find themselves with few public platforms. 

Prominent supporters of Beijing are rewarded by Beijing with trips to China.
Few Chinese organizations publicly opposing the Chinese Communist Party are left, their rallying power having been stunted by the lack of coverage by Chinese-language news outlets. 

And independent organizations have been taken over by pro-Beijing members, who then change the club’s mission.
Beijing’s domination of the conversation in the Chinese community gives the wider public a skewed view of Chinese-Australians. 

The rest of the country is left with the impression that Chinese-Australians are a unified bloc that supports Beijing. 

One right-wing commentator even wrote an article titled, “A Million Chinese Here May Not All Be on Our Side.” 

This mind-set affects Australia’s policymaking process.
Beijing’s agents here are also keen to remind Australians of this country’s history of racism against Chinese. 

The result is that when a Chinese-Australian is accused of having ties to Beijing, he may cry racism, saying that he’s being tarnished by connections to Beijing only because he’s ethnic Chinese. 

In the absence of balanced reporting in the Chinese-language media, many Australians are inclined to believe these claims.
A series of new bills in Parliament on foreign interference, including the introduction of a foreign-agents register and a ban on foreign political donations, would weaken Beijing’s levers of control among Chinese-Australians. 

It may also inspire new confidence among Chinese-Australians that our struggles are being recognized, that we are no longer being left to fend for ourselves in this fight against coercion.
Still, many Chinese-Australians feel frustrated by the way we are viewed and represented. 

All Chinese-Australians should have the right to voice their opinions without fearing reprisals by Beijing.
So-called Chinese community leaders who do not in fact represent most Chinese-Australians should be forthcoming about their ties to the Communist Party. 

And those who do not reveal their ties should be called out not just in English-language media but also in the Chinese-language press. 

Independent Chinese-Australian community groups should be supported.
The Australian government must do its part to put an end to Beijing’s coercive influence on the local Chinese-language news media and the broader Chinese community. 

Our government should use diplomatic and security channels to push back against pressure on the media and Beijing’s takeover of Chinese community groups. 

The independence and reach of publicly funded Mandarin and Cantonese news outlets should be ensured and expanded.
Chinese-Australians are not powerless. We need to speak up. 

But it’s also time for all Australians, regardless of ethnic background, to unite to protect the country’s sovereignty and dignity. 

If we are truly a nation of tolerance and freedom, all Australians should support Chinese-Australians’ freedom of expression.

Badiucao Launches Global Art for Liu Xiaobo Campaign

China Digital Times

On July 12, as Liu Xiaobo was in his final hours of life and Chinese authorities had made clear they wouldn’t allow the imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate to go abroad for medical treatment, CDT resident cartoonist Badiucao headed to the public art alley on Hosier Lane in Melbourne, Australia to hang a commemorative poster and “Free Liu Xiaobo” sign. After Liu’s death, the Melbourne-based artist is continuing his “Art for Liu Xiaobo” campaign, calling on his fans and Liu Xiaobo supporters worldwide to take it global. In correspondence with CDT Chinese editors, Badiucao explained the campaign:

7/12, Mr. Liu Xiaobo’s fatal illness has sent me to the Melbourne streets to launch a commemorative poster campaign. After the 13th, the sadness of Xiaobo’s passing and anger with the ruthless treatment from authorities has led me to continue the “posters for Xiaobo” campaign and appeal to society for help. Perhaps art is the best way to pay homage to Liu Xiaobo, a doctor of aesthetics, art can also influence all people around.  

I have created these Liu Xiaobo and Liu Xia cartoons, which are the main pieces I plan to post on the streets. [Chinese]

On July 12 in Australia I launched a Support Liu Xiaobo street art movement (at that time the state of Xiaobo’s illness was getting extremely severe). The entire process was very simple, seek out a legal and local graffiti site, and put up posters of Mr. Liu Xiaobo. This was just for self-expression, but the next day I discovered Melbourne residents had filled the alley with flowers, in one evening what began as one poster in the city center had turned into a corner for investing support and thoughts. Perhaps Dr. [Liu] is feeling comforted in heaven. [Chinese]

 Follow

巴丢草 Badiucao @badiucao

#LiuXiaobo Everyone in Melbourne is welcome to Hosier Lane to leave note，flower & love.
向墨尔本发起 #刘晓波鲜花 活动，去Hosier Lane，送刘晓波一支花。入夜了，让花俏俏绽放

1:06 PM - 14 Jul 2017

 
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16 Jul

巴丢草 Badiucao @badiucao

墨尔本 hosier lane #刘晓波 纪念涂鸦处的花已经铺满了小巷，来往的游客纷纷驻足拍照，有人主动停下为他人介绍刘晓波，有人写下字条，有人点长明蜡烛。 pic.twitter.com/1Opzn2OeWX

 Follow

巴丢草 Badiucao @badiucao

墨尔本 hosier lane #刘晓波 纪念 pic.twitter.com/egufWYSDLB

1:45 PM - 16 Jul 2017

 
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Flowers are already filling the alley at the Hosier Lane #LiuXiaobo commemorative graffiti spot.  Tourists were constantly snapping pictures while coming and going, some of them took the initiative to stop for a moment and read the introduction to Liu Xiaobo, some wrote a brief note, some lit a long-life candle.

On July 16, Badiucao thanked his Twitter friends for replicating his efforts at the Sydney University Graffiti Tunnel, and promised to make his art available for more commemorative spaces elsewhere:

 Follow

巴丢草 Badiucao @badiucao

A new art site for #LiuXiaobo in #SydneyUniversity Graffiti Tunnel
感谢推友将 #刘晓波 和 #刘霞 画带到悉尼大学！期待大家寻访纪念！
稍后我将提供海报制作及张贴的教程，希望把晓波带去世界更多的城市！

3:31 AM - 17 Jul 2017

 
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Thank you Twitter friends for bringing my #LiuXiaobo and #LiuXia pictures to Sydney University! I look forward to everyone seeing the commemoration! In a short while I will provide poster-making and hanging instructions, I want to bring Xiaobo to more of the world’s cities!

True to his promise, Badiucao has uploaded multi-panel versions of his artwork on Google Drive to be printed and posted in cities around the world in commemoration of Liu Xiaobo. Badiucao also invites other artists to supply their designs for the campaign via Twitter.

So far I’ve already constructed and arranged a set of tutorials available to download, print, and use to friends across the world—I even invite those in China to join in. Use these to establish a commemorative space for Liu Xiaobo. Mr. Liu Xiaobo’s remains are already at sea, but his soul will forever be on this earth. [Chinese]

To start a commemorative space in your city, find a legal graffiti wall, visit Badiucao’s collection of printable posters on Google Drive or Dropbox, and follow his print and paste instructions (in Chinese, or follow similar instructions for wheat-pasting in English). Once the art is hung, take a picture and tweet it to @Badiucao.

You can support Badiucao by buying “Watching Big Brother: Political Cartoons by Badiucao,” available in EPUB and PDF formats. The book covers the early years of Xi’s presidency, from December 2013 to January 2016. No contribution is required, but all donations will go to Badiucao to support his artwork. CDT is also selling merchandise featuring Badiucao’s work in our Zazzle store. See also interviews with the artist by CDT, PRI’s The World and Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s RN. Many of his earlier cartoons are available via CDT.