“Wherever I take this exhibition, they follow me“

30 Jun 23 | China, News and features

A packed-out audience gathered at St John’s Church in Waterloo, London on Tuesday to see and hear an extraordinary night of talk, music and art aimed at showing how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) reaches beyond its borders to repress freedom of expression around the world.

Badiucao, the political cartoonist, artist and human rights activist who is a target of the CCP, was the main speaker and detailed how the CCP attempts to suppress his work abroad and the lengths they will go to.

Known as the Chinese Banksy, Badiucao was born into an artistic family in 1986. He explained he was told by his father at a young age that to be an artist in China is dangerous, and he would have to leave the country to pursue his career. He left in 2009.

‘Tell China’s Story Well’, by Badiucao

“I didn’t want to be silenced and devalued by this terrible regime, and the way to go forward was to make art they don’t believe in,” he said.

However, in 2018 an exhibition of his work in Hong Kong was cancelled by organisers after threats made by the Chinese authorities. After this, he also felt there was a lack of interest to show his work in Australia but blamed a strategy of the CCP for this.

“The Chinese government are very good at playing mind games”, he said. “They will use a tactic of accusing people and countries of being racist, of simply being anti-Chinese.”

Fresh from his exhibition in Warsaw in June, Badiucao said the pressure from China not to exhibit his work in Europe has so far been successfully fought against, but the pressure has been ramped up. He explained that in Warsaw, when the exhibition was announced, the Chinese Embassy visited the museum and demanded its cancellation.

Banned By Beijing exhibition

“Wherever I take this exhibition, they follow me,” he said. “It’s a warning to anybody wanting to host my show, that you must handle the pressure you’ll get. However, what the CCP is doing is raising the bar for my future work.”

Baudicau feels that as a dissident abroad his work means the CCP will eventually catch up with him. He said: “To me it’s no longer a yes or no. It’s just a case of when. But the more people join [protest the CCP], we can all share this big burden together.”

Music was provided by the London Silk Road Collective, who performed the diverse music traditions found along the ancient Silk Road route, connecting Europe, Central Asia and South East Asia, with a particular focus on songs (both melancholy and hopeful) from the Uyghur region. Its singer, Uyghur campaigner Rahima Mahmut, spoke about the personal effects of being a dissident abroad when she explained the anguish of her sister recently dying in China but being unable to contact her family due to the CCP.

The event also marked the opening of the Banned by Beijing art exhibition, aimed at highlighting transnational repression from China. Badiucao’s artwork featured, as well as works from husband-and-wife painting duo Lumli Lumlong and cartoonist and former secondary school visual arts teacher Vawongsir. The exhibition will run in the crypt of St John’s Church, Waterloo until 10 July 2023.

Index on Censorship host event Beijing would rather you didn’t see

21 Jun 23 | China, News and features, Press Releases

Index on Censorship’s upcoming “Banned by Beijing” event will highlight the Chinese Communist Party’s efforts to censor and repress freedom of expression through an evening of art and performance. The CCP’s repression of human rights has been widely documented but few realise that their repression extends far beyond its borders, including into Europe. This event will provide an opportunity for attendees to see and hear what the CCP have tried to repress.

Earlier this month, the Chinese Embassy in Poland tried to block the opening of the exhibition, “Tell China’s Story Well”, by the political cartoonist and human rights activist Badiucao. Chinese embassies in Prague and Rome have previously made similar attempts to close his exhibitions. He will join the event to speak about his experience of transnational repression. 

Uyghur campaigner Rahima Mahmut will also speak about her experience of transnational repression, and perform with her band the London Silk Road Collective. Mahmut  previously contributed to a report by Index, which highlighted the transnational repression faced by the Uyghur community in Europe.

The event will also mark the opening of the Banned by Beijing exhibition, aimed at highlighting transnational repression from China. As well Badiucao’s artwork, works from husband-and-wife painting duo Lumli Lumlong and cartoonist and former secondary school visual arts teacher Vawongsir, will be displayed. The exhibition will run until 10 July.

The event will take place as we mark the third anniversary of the enactment of Hong Kong’s National Security Law. The exhibition will pay tribute to the 75-year-old British businessman and founder of Hong Kong’s Apple Daily newspaper, Jimmy Lai who remains in prison in Hong Kong, charged with violating the national security law among other offences. It will be the first time that Lumli Lumlong’s “Apple Man” will be shown in public.

Jessica Ní Mhaínin, Head of Policy and Campaigns at Index on Censorship said:

“This Banned by Beijing event will provide an opportunity to see a side of China that the Chinese Communist Party would much rather you didn’t. We want people to join us on the evening to stand in solidarity with those who are being subject to transnational repression. The event will send a clear message: dissident artists and performers cannot and will not be censored by the long arm of the regime.”

ENDS

NOTES TO EDITORS

  1. The event takes place on Tue, 27 June 2023 19:00 – 22:00 at St John’s Church in Waterloo and the exhibition will run until 10 July.
  2. Report into repression of Uyghurs in Europe: https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2022/02/landmark-report-shines-light-on-chinese-long-arm-repression-of-ex-pat-uyghurs/ 
  3. For more information, please contact Sophia Rigby on [email protected] or Jessica Ní Mhaínin on [email protected].
  4. The artists will attend the event in person and we can organise for interviews during the evening with any of the artists and Rahima Mahmut.

Tiananmen Square? Don’t mention it

07 Jun 23 | China, News and features

As always the Chinese authorities cracked down on public commemorations of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, which occurred 34 years ago last Sunday. As always more things were added to the list of what cannot be said in the lead-up. And as always people got creative in their response to getting round the censorship. Here’s a roundup of what happened recently for the anniversary Beijing would rather we all forgot.

White candles not welcome

Armoured police vehicles were deployed and hundreds of police conducted stop and search operations near Victoria Park in Hong Kong, where vigils for the victims of the massacre had previously been held for decades. The UN were “alarmed” that 23 people were arrested on Sunday for “breaching the peace”, including a veteran activist knows as “Grandma Wong”. A solitary elderly man who held a candle on a street corner was also reported to have been arrested. Commemorations of the event have become increasingly off-limits in the city state since China imposed a sweeping national security law in 2020. Still, Twitter was filled with images of people lighting candles from the relative safety of their own homes in Hong Kong.

Don’t mention Sitong Bridge

Words or symbols that reference the massacre are notoriously scrubbed from the internet by the Chinese authorities. Last week, this censorship extended to the Sitong Bridge in Beijing, when Chinese language online searches of the bridge yielded no results. It comes after a banner was unfurled on the bridge in 2022 calling for the removal of Chinese president Xi Jinping. A Weibo post by the British Embassy in Beijing showing how the Chinese state media originally reported the massacre (namely in more detail than the silence now, with state media making reference to mass casualties in hospital at the time) was removed by the authorities. The anniversary is sometimes known as “internet maintenance day” because of the number of websites taken offline.

Literary pursuits

In the weeks building up to the anniversary, it was reported that books and videos about the massacre were pulled from Hong Kong public libraries, after government auditors requested works that were “manifestly contrary” to national security be taken away. Wio News reported in mid-May that searches of library archives involving keywords on the massacre turned up no articles or references.

Tiananmen Square surveilled

No shocker here, but worth saying nonetheless – any form of rally or protest was absent at Tiananmen Square in Beijing on Sunday due to additional security checks in the area. Pedestrians on Changan Avenue, running north of the square, were stopped and forced to present identification. Journalists were also told they need special permission to be in the area.

New York new museum

A new museum dedicated to the Tiananmen Square massacre opened on Friday in New York. Zhou Fengsuo, who opened the exhibit as part of the 4th June Memorial Museum, felt it was needed as a pushback to the decades-long campaign by the CCP to eradicate remembrance of the massacre around the world. Despite being in the USA, there are still security fears for the museum’s workers. Speaking about how the museum will operate a visitor booking system, Wang Dan, a former student leader during the Tiananmen protests, told the Guardian: ““We cannot open the door for anyone who wants to come in because we’re really worried they [the Chinese embassy] will send somebody.”

The world remembers

Commemorations for the massacre were held around the world, including in Sydney, where speakers included exiled former diplomat Chen Yonglin, and demonstrators chanted “Free Hong Kong”. In London, hundreds gathered outside the Chinese Embassy calling for justice for the victims of the massacre, and for the release of human rights lawyer Chow Hang-Tung. Over in Taipei in Taiwan, less than a month after the seizure of Hong Kong’s “Pillar of Shame”, a statue commemorating the victims of the massacre, people gathered around a replica on Sunday as part of the city’s commemorations. Now the only place in the Chinese-speaking world to openly hold a memorial, organisers hoped to show solidarity with both Hong Kong and Chinese dissidents.

This is no joke

31 May 23 | China, News and features

Humour and politics are always a dangerous mix in authoritarian states and no more so than in China. A recent high-profile event that involved the punishment of popular stand-up comedian Li Haoshi (above) and XiaoGuo Comedy, China’s largest talk show company and who had hired Li along with many other well-known stand-up comedians, proves that delivering a wrong punchline can have dire consequences: XiaoGuo has been fined colossal amounts of money (13.35 million yuan; $1.8 million) and Li possibly faces years in jail.

Performing under the English stage name House on 13 May, Li quipped that he adopted two stray dogs that turned out to be extremely energetic and capable. Once set free in the mountains, the dogs chased a squirrel like a missile launched into the air. Li then said he was so impressed that eight words came into his mind immediately: 作风优良, 能打胜仗, literally meaning they “can defeat enemies while maintaining excellent discipline and moral conduct”, which is a typical slogan to praise China’s People’s Liberation Army in the Xi Jinping era. The punchline served its purpose and caused roaring laughter. However, some audiences felt very uncomfortable with Li’s insult to the PLA. His joke was recorded by one of the disgruntled audience members and posted on Sina Weibo, the most popular Chinese social media platform. The disclosed video soon sparked public outcry among netizens against Li and his company.

People accused Li of intentionally tarnishing the image of military soldiers and mocking Xi’s political slogan. They believe Li’s punchline alluded to a scene in the Red Classic propaganda film produced in 1956, Battle on Shanggan Mountain, in which People’s Voluntary Army soldiers in the Korean War chased squirrels for fun in between battles. Moreover, the eight words he used to praise the stray dogs are the exact words Chinese President Xi Jinping said at the plenary meeting of the PLA delegation in 2013, which has now become a political slogan of the PLA.

As anger spiralled online, Xinhua News Agency and People’s Daily, two of the biggest state media outlets, issued online commentaries, criticising the comedian and reiterating that insulting the PLA is intolerable. The China Association of Performing Arts called for its members to boycott Li, according to the Management Measures for the Self-Disciplines of Arts in the Performing Arts Industry. Though Li and XiaoGuo both quickly apologised on social media, their apologies gained no forgiveness from either the public or the government. On top of the hefty fine, XiaoGuo was banned from future performances. Li’s Weibo account was banned. The Chaoyang Branch of the Beijing Municipal Public Security filed a case to investigate the comedian due to what they perceived as the very harmful social impact that the incident caused. Li is likely to be accused of violating the Law on the Protection of the Status and Rights and Interests of Military Personnel of China, issued in 2021, and likely to face criminal prosecution.

Operating under strong censorship in China’s cultural industries, performing arts that rely on humour have always walked a fine line between pleasing both audiences and regulatory bodies. While open political criticism on stage has never been possible, traditional two-people comic talk shows called “cross-talk”, alongside more conventional comic skits, became popular amongst Chinese audiences on tv and on radio. From the 1980s to early 2000s they managed to carve out space to poke fun at social ills, even on the stage of the annual Spring Festival Gala live broadcast by the China Central Television, which has millions of viewers. For example, a cross-talk show called The Thief PTY Ltd satirised the prevalent social phenomenon of bureaucracy and nepotism, while star comedian Zhao Benshan’s comic skit Uncle Niu’s Promotion aired at the 1995 Spring Festival Gala and lampooned the social malaise of civil servants feasting on public funds. In this particular skit, a villager was “promoted” to director of a public service department due to his ability to hold down alcohol. These critical comedy works became classics for millions of Chinese audiences.

But the small space for fun has been squeezed in the last decade under Xi, as artists are expected to promote “positive energy” and morally educate the public. This has directly caused the decline in popularity of cross-talk and comic skits, as well as the CCTV Spring Festival Gala iself.

It was against this backdrop that stand-up comedy shows sprang up and gained popularity, especially in metropolitan cities such as Beijing and Shanghai and especially amongst millennials.

Watching stand-up comedy has become a popular middle-class leisure activity in China. In 2021 alone, China had 18,500 stand-up comedy shows and the box office income had reached 391 million yuan ($55.4 million). This represents phenomenal growth for a burgeoning industry, considering live stand-up comedy only really started to emerge in China around 2014. In the years that have followed open mics and stand-up comedy competitions have gained huge traction offline and also on. Take the show Rock & Roast as an example. In Rock & Roast, amateur comics compete against each other to become "talk king". An average of 70 million viewers watched the two-hour programme in 2019, up from 50 million in 2017, and its Weibo page attracted up to six billion views by 2021.

Scholars Dan Chen and Gengsong Gao critically analysed the popularity of stand-up comedy and its politics in China in an article published in Critical Discourse Studies in 2021. They argue that stand-up comedies carefully transgressed and expanded the boundary of state rhetoric by providing alternative views on social issues of common concern in a subtle way. Their popularity for both performers and viewers was partly tied to their ability to be an arena in which people could speak more freely.

Sadly the incident of Li Haoshi shows the limitation of such “transgressive rhetoric”, as well as the shrinking of the tiny areas of freedom for making jokes in China today. With the tightening control and regulation of artistic creation and of artists, more and more red lines have been drawn. Under Xi, Party-endorsed heroes, role models and official narratives of revolutionary events have become much more sensitive topics than they used to be. Ultimately they cannot be easily mocked or deconstructed. People who cross the line see their works or speeches labelled as “historical nihilism” and get punished.

The Li incident is not the first time comedians in China’s rising stand-up scene have found themselves in hot water. In 2019 former Chinese men’s football team captain Fan Zhiyi mocked the disappointing performance of the Chinese men's basketball team in the 2019 Basketball World Cup in an episode in Rock & Roast Season Five and was criticised by Xinhua News Agency for “hurting the feelings of basketball fans”. A month later Beijing authorities fined the organisers of a small Beijing show 50,000 yuan, (around $7,700 at the time) for “using vulgar terms in its performance which violate social morality”.

But the punishment of Li and XiaoGuo represents an escalation and will definitely impact China’s burgeoning stand-up comedy industry and the boundaries of making jokes both on stage and off. Whether Li’s case will be judged within the legal framework is still unknown as the government seems to be weighing up the pros and cons of penalties to be meted out. How Li will be punished is therefore particularly noteworthy for those who care about freedom of speech, the rule of law and the comedy landscape in China.