China Controversial Cartoonist Badiucao Fear of Being Disappeared At Any Moment

Badiucao, who regularly receives death threats over the past eight years, now considered as a public enemy by the Chinese Communist Party. It was in 2011 that he first dipped his brush into the genre of political satire: by launching an online campaign via which he solicited dick pics from hundreds of other artists around the world.

He had come across several spies who were following him, dressed in same corporate outfit and sporting the same bluetooth earpieces. They followed him and stayed in the same supermarket for 45 minutes until they knew they were exposed. He had also encountered a possible home invasion in Melbourne. He was woken up by a noise one night.

He is now taking every precaution he can, uses encrypted messaging apps, a VPN, avoid going to the Chinatown as he knows a "high presence of Chinese agents and eyes there.

Despite the personal threats faced, he does not back away from any topic.

He had been paying a lot of attention in the #HongKongProtests , and he knew his works were widely recognised by Hongkongers on Twitter. Badiucao felt a kind of spiritual connection to Hong Kong, having been all but exiled from the region in 2018 for his anti-CCP artworks.

He believes that "art is important. After 100 days, everybody is tired. There's no clear solution in sight, which means that the protests would just have to keep going. Otherwise it'll all be for nothing". He believed that there are two functions to art, firstly it deconstructs authority and empowers the people so that people feel encouraged and will have more energy to protest. Secondly, it gets people's attention, both locally and globally. Media need something new to report on after more than 100 days of rallies, clashes and violent melees.

https://www.vice.com/en_in/article/ne85p7/controversial-chinese-australian-artist-badiucao-fears-disappearing-at-any-moment