PARTICIPANTS IN THE Winter Olympics are the latest target for Australia-based Badiucao, Western media’s favorite anti-China cartoonist. His latest “jokes” show sports people committing murder, spreading the coronavirus and so on.
As with much criticism of China, the artist claims to oppose only the Chinese government but in practice attacks Chinese people in general.
Puzzlingly, Badiucao’s harsh take on China, seeing it as a genocidal place, and the home of the people who attacked the world with a virus, is identical to that of the west’s far right, yet he receives entirely positive coverage the media as a whole.
THERE ARE GAMES HERE?
Athletes of all cultures have called on the international media not to politicize the games, but their pleas have gone unheeded.
“It’s a shame,” said an Olympic organizer in Hong Kong. “Athletes go through literally years of training to bring the peoples of the world together, but the media has no interest in anything except grabbing political opportunities to demonize China.”
Case in point: Reuters’ latest social media summary of the Olympics Day 3 is pure negativity and rather comically forgot to mention sports at all:
“The Winter Games continue to grapple with Covid-19 with more athletes complaining about isolation conditions and protocols. Let’s get caught up on Day 3 of the Olympics.”
Games? There are games here?
CASH AND NFTS
Badiucao’s collection is spreading on the internet this week as part of a campaign to spoil the Winter Olympics in Beijing, where 2,900 athletes from all over the world are competing.
But the series was first shown last year as part of the 2021 Oslo Freedom Forum in Miami, according to The Art Newspaper.
The Oslo Freedom Forum, despite its name, is based in the United States, and has admitted providing training and support for violent street protests in Hong Kong. The United States senate has passed bills promising billions of dollars for groups engaged in “countering” Chinese state propaganda. However, Chinese state media’s impact outside its own country is close to zero.
Badiucao is hoping for another windfall. He is offering each poster as an NFT, hoping to cash in on a new speculative investment trend.
Picture at the top shows posters at the George Washington University from Twitter: posters are copyright to Badiucao