A roundup of online political cartoons from the past two weeks. Click any image to launch gallery view.
Want more? Check out CDT Chinese’s Sunday series, Empire Illustrated (图说天朝).
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- During Xi Jinping and Obama’s meeting at Sunnylands last week, one keen-eyed Chinese netizen noticed that a photo of the two world leaders bore a striking resemblance to Winnie-the-Pooh and Tigger. The censors didn’t appreciate the comparison, soon deleting images of China’s leader as a “chubby little cubby all stuffed with fluff.”
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- Before the Pooh-Tigger meme disappeared, artist Murong Aoao got in on the action. As Pooh (Xi Jinping) follows Deng Xiaoping’s advice and “crosses the river by feeling the stones,” Tigger (Obama) saunters past him on a bridge. Deng created this image to explain how the country would progress step-by-step, making economic reforms ahead of political reforms. In this cartoon, “socialism with Chinese characteristics” isn’t getting the country where it needs to go. (Murong Aoao)
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- China isn’t known for its soccer prowess–the national team has only once made it to the World Cup. So the 1-5 loss to Thailand on June 15 shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise. But the media had stirred up hope prior to the match, declaring the Thai team a “pushover.” Adding insult to injury, soccer fan Xi Jinping celebrated his 60th birthday on the same day. In Lao Xiao’s rendering, the first character in “Thailand” (泰国) handily breaks China (中国). Now scandal has kicked the national team while it’s down. (Lao Xiao)
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- City management officials, or chengguan, are a para-police force known for their brutality. On May 31, a group of chengguan accosted Liu Guofeng, the owner of a bike shop in Yenan, Shaanxi Province. Liu was dragged to the ground, while one officer jumped on his head. The online video of the assault enraged netizens, but an open letter issued on Baidu Tieba on June 7 made matters worse. The letter, written with the “consent” of Liu, claimed that Liu accepted that he had some responsibility for the incident. “Netizens, do not let this particular incident erase the image of this sacred site of revolution.” The Chinese Communist Party operated from Yenan between 1936 and 1948. All of the city, save for a pagoda, was destroyed during World War II. In Kuang Biao’s cartoon, that pagoda hammers home an impression of this “sacred” city. (Kuang Biao)
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- “I am not here to hide from justice,” Edward Snowden told the South China Morning Post of his flight to Hong Kong after leaking US National Security Agency secrets, “I am here to reveal criminality.” But while former U.S. vice president Dick Cheney’s accusation that Snowden is spying for the Chinese has been denied, this cartoon ponders China as safe harbor. “Little Liang, keep him here until you’ve wrung him dry. Then send him to Obama.” (Jiu’an)
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- While Xi Jinping speaks of a “Chinese dream” for the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” netizens have their own personal dreams: a good education, a career in music, or a happy retirement, perhaps. But the Chinese dream is for some, like Liu Xiaobo’s wife, Liu Xia, a nightmare. The reverie of the man in the middle had been revoked: all he has are the words “this dream has been deleted by the Dream Owner,” an invocation of the message received when a weibo is removed. (Zhu Senlin)
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- Taking care not to wake the lion, who finds the book Chinese Dream a little too pleasurable. (Rebel Pepper)
