A roundup of online political cartoons from the past week. Click any image to launch slideshow.
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An oil pipeline in the coastal city of Qingdao exploded after leaking for several hours last Friday, killing 55 people and injuring at least 160. Oil spilled onto about one square kilometer of land and flowed through drainage pipes to the ocean. While some media asked why residents were not told to evacuate, local Qingdao news outlets kept silent on the accident until Sunday. In this cartoon, a body is covered by the Peninsula Metropolitan Daily (青岛都市报), a Qingdao paper. On Sunday, the Central Propaganda Department issued a directive to online and print media circumscribing coverage of the accident. (Badiucao)
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On November 20, three little boys helped an elderly woman who had fallen in Sichuan.
The woman, surnamed Jiang, then accused the boys of pushing her and claimed damages for her medical care–over 20,000 RMB for a fractured hip bone. A Public Security Bureau investigation found that Ms. Jiang did indeed fall and that her behavior constituted extortion. While legally this accusation should lead to seven days of administrative detention, Ms. Jiang was deemed too old for this punishment. Recalling past instances of good Samaritans victimized by the elderly, many netizens conclude that “it isn’t that old people are becoming bad, it’s that bad people are getting old.”
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1.52 million potential government employees took the national civil service exam on Saturday, competing for just 19,000 posts. Positions in the central government provide a “golden rice bowl,” while private sector jobs can be unstable. One exam taker explained to CNN that “the prospect of stable salary and good benefits make more it appealing than the private sector that attracts many of the most ambitious minds in the U.S. and Europe.” (Kuang Biao)
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Hong Kong Basic Law Committee chairman Li Fei stated last Friday that the chief executive of the special administrative region must love both China and Hong Kong. “If someone who opposes the central authorities [in Beijing] becomes chief executive, how can he be responsible to the Central People’s Government as stipulated by the Basic Law?” In this Apple Daily cartoon, a man gets the “certification” of his love of love of China (爱国) and Hong Kong (爱港). (Zunzi/Apple Daily)
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Xi Jinping, who many China watchers argue is more Dengist than Maoist, borrows the Great Helmsman’s brain. (Jiu’an)
Check out more cartoons at CDT Chinese.
