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Opinion on Taiwan★★★ politics,
war
★★★analysis
& comments |
♦♦ ♦ Taiwan, freedom & democracy? ♦ ♦ US skepticism from Taiwan ♦ ♦ Taiwan leaders - liars? ♦ ♦ same-sex marriage in Taiwan on purpose ? ♦♦ Taiwan president's secret life?♦ ♦ mind control weaponry in Taiwan ♦♦ China's invasion of Taiwan ♦♦♦ disinformation, interference from foreign countries ♦♦ Taiwan - lowest trust rates in the media among democracies
OPinion ♣♣ ♣Hong Kong (China) VS. Taiwan in Political cartoons ♣
♣
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Zola Zu's article about freedom
in Taiwan and HK
was printed in FECO NEWS (Europe, April
2024) distributed to 40+ countries
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Taiwan needs to
declassify all political archives, particularly persecution records in
recent 40 years. Some top politicians continue to ignore this issue, some top politicians prefer to declassify old political archives about 70 years ago - it means much less because the prime suspects in White Terror era were dead already. Some top officials may be suspected to harbor criminals or even flee from justice. |
A picture says more and louder than thousand words
According to <Asian Political Cartoons> book (by Dr. John Lent, University press of Mississippi, 2023), "if you offend any one of them (Taiwan's politicians), you are sent to court. Artists only know art, and to be sent to court is unfathomable and a headache for them".
Taiwan needs to declassify all political archives to find out if the consequence of offending politicians is only a "headache". ps1
Compare Taiwan with Hong Kong.
In protests from
2003 to 2020 ps2,
Hong Kongers have created tens of thousands of political cartoons/design works ps3
for propaganda, communication, mobilization, and drawing international
attentions. Parts of Hong Kong including bus stations became a gallery.
Fortunately, there's no any editorial cartoonists being sued or imprisoned.
At that time the HK gov. learned they need to “fill loopholes” in their laws to root out "seeds of unrest" and "hostile forces lurking in society”. New York Times and CNN (2024-1-30) reported that HK officials claimed “ the CIA and British intel. have publicly stated that they'll do a lot of work to target China and HK”.
After protests, some cartoon columns ended. Cartoonist Justin
Wong, a scholar at HK Baptist Univ., chose to leave HK after hearing that the
school allegedly contacted the police for his works about the protests. Radio
Free Asia (2023-5-11) quoted some comments saying that the public opinion
environment in HK is worse than that in mainland China.
In 2023, top cartoonist Zunzi's column in Ming Pao news, which accompanied Hong
Kongers for 40 years, was suddenly discontinued. Zunzi told AFP that it's due
to "political pressure" triggered by his latest cartoon. Zunzi's
cartoons have already caused controversies over the years (even banned by
Singapore in 1998). RFA believes that the cartoon criticizing the
district-council reform was the
straw that broke the camel's back. ps4
Professor
John Lent hopes Zunzi
can get a reprieve. Thankfully,
Zunzi has not been prosecuted several months after that event. However, all
of his cartoons were moved out of public libraries ── Hitler's autobiography < Mein
Kampf> is
still on the book-shelf.
N.Y. Times (2021-7-23): "Even with the security law in place, political cartoons and protest artwork have continued to thrive on the margins in Hong Kong, but that could soon change". <Asian Political Cartoons> (2023): "Not many Taiwanese young people draw political cartoons, because now there's a plethora of political parties... ".
An art article in the New York Times (2023-10-11) says this might be the least culturally innovative century in the past 500 years. In Hong Kong and Taiwan, innovation and ambition could be even less, for more reasons.
PS1: Taiwanese
people suffered
electromagnetic wave attacks and
mentally controls.
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PS2: From Hong Kong's 1-July-protests in 2003 (Hong Kong 1 July marches - Wikipedia), the Umbrella Movement in 2014 (2014 Hong Kong protests - Wikipedia), then to the Hong Kong anti-extradition bill (movement against the extradition bill amendment bill 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests - Wikipedia) . PS3: https://creative-comic.tw/zh/special_topics/19 2020-8-20 PS4: BBC (2023-7-10) reported that Zunzi's cartoons have already caused controversies over the years. RFI (2023-5-11) reported: In the past six months, many departments of the Hong Kong government, including Hong Kong Police Force、Labour and Welfare Bureau、Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau、 Security Bureau and No.2 powerful person, the Chief Secretary for Administration, have criticized Zunzi. PS5: CNN edition.cnn.com/2024/01/30/asia/hong-kong-security-law-article-23-consultation-intl-hnk/index.html New York Times 2024-1-30 nytimes.com/2024/01/30/world/asia/hong-kong-security-law-unrest.html BBC bbc.com/zhongwen/trad/chinese-news-65554858 BBC bbc.com/zhongwen/trad/chinese-news-65559578 tkww.hk/a/202305/11/AP645c905ee4b0c614abacce82.html rfa.org/cantonese/news/htm/hk-comic-05192023061105.html epochtimes.com/gb/23/6/5/n14010220.htm .rfi.fr/tw/中國/20230511-港官批評後-著名政治漫畫家尊子遭-明報-停掉專欄-評論指港府胸襟不符國際都會要求 DW 2023-5-14 .dw.com/zh/告別明報40年政治漫畫-尊子希望就在轉角位/a-65613713
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PS 6 : Unlike political or editorial cartoons, pictures on children's book got some trouble. Ref to Washington Post, 2022-9-7, New York Times 2021-7-23, New York Times 2020-12-30, Hong Kong Free Press 2021-07-22, Hong Kong Police arrested group-leaders behind a children's picture book which featured 12 sheeps captured were sent to wolves village for eating (「送去狼村落度畀狼開餐啊!」) , another sheep called them "12 brave warriors" , in apparent reference to the 12 Hong Kong activists arrested by Chinese authorities as they tried to flee to Taiwan. The HK police accused that children book publishers of instilling impressionable children with anti-government hatred and incite violent and criminal behavior. |