A roundup of online political cartoons from June 2 to July 2. Click any image to launch the slideshow view. For more cartoons, see CDT Chinese.
“Illegal Referendum”
With many Hong Kongers already worried they may not enjoy universal suffrage in the the 2017 election of Hong Kong’s Chief Executive, on June 10 the State Council Information Office released a white paper reasserting Beijing’s “complete jurisdiction” over the semi-autonomous territory. The policy document met much criticism in Hong Kong, and came as Occupy Central activists were preparing an unofficial referendum on electoral reform. Nearly 800,000 people participated in the ten-day poll, and Beijing was not amused. Occupy’s online voting platform suffered what the New York Times called “one of the most severe cyberattacks of its kind,” and mainland censors ordered all coverage and discussion of the referendum to be deleted. These heightened tensions set the stage for Hong Kong’s annual July 1 rally marking the territory’s handover to the mainland. While the poll exceeded Occupy’s estimates by almost eight-fold, the march fell far short of organizers’ projections, and the total number of participants remains contested.
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- A promotional flyer for the Occupy poll shows a rose-wielding hand tearing through the SCIO white paper.
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- “Fire is not compatible with water.” The HK white paper is represented by a birdcage. (Ah Tu 阿涂)
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- CDT resident cartoonist Badiucao reimagines the unknown June 4, 1989 democracy protester “Tank Man.” The caption coming out of his ballot reads “The Power of the Vote” (Badiucao 巴丢草)
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- The characters on either side of the ballot box in the white panel read “Hong Kong.” In the red panel, the box with slot obstructed by tape becomes the first character (中) in the Chinese word for “China” (中国). (Li Xiao Guai 李小乖)
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- “The fate of you wild boars is the decision of all the swine in the mainland.” As votes were stacking up in the unofficial poll, state-run Global Times published an editorial saying that the hundreds of thousands who had voted were “no match” for the mainland population of 1.3 billion [Chinese], and calling the poll “illegal.” The editorial also said that those 1.3 billion mainlanders had the “right to speak on Hong Kong’s political reform.” After Hong Kong Chief Executive CY Leung disagreed with the Global Times, mainland censors ordered all coverage of Leung’s lack of consensus be deleted. (Rebel Pepper 变态辣椒)
