Shannon Brandao
From the article: "Li Yuan, NYT: In November 2022, Li Ying was a painter and art school graduate in Milan, living in a state of sadness, fear and despair. #China’s strict #pandemic policies had kept him from seeing his parents for three years, and he was unsure where his country was heading.
In China, after enduring endless Covid tests, quarantines and lockdowns, people staged the most widespread #protests the country had seen in decades, many holding roughly letter-size paper to demonstrate defiance against censorship and tyranny, in what has been called the White Paper movement.
Then Mr. Li did something that he never anticipated would become so significant: He turned his #Twitter account into an information clearinghouse. People inside China sent him photos, videos and other witness accounts, at times more than a dozen per second, that would otherwise be censored on the Chinese #internet. He used Twitter, which is banned in China, to broadcast them to the world. The avatar on Mr. Li’s account, his drawing of a cat that is both cute and menacing, became famous.
His following on the platform swelled by 500,000 in a matter of weeks. To the Chinese state, he was a troublemaker. To some Chinese, he was a superhero who stood up to their #authoritarian government and their iron-fisted leader, #XiJinping.
When the government abruptly ended the Covid policy last December, Mr. Li and other young #activists faced a question: Was their protest a moment in history, or a footnote?
A year later, Mr. Li was clear in his answer. 'the White Paper movement,' he told me in an interview, 'was not the end, but the beginning of something.'
His journey from a young artist into a rebel #influencer has brought fear, guilt, courage and hope. It’s one that has become familiar to many of his peers.
At 31, Mr. Li is among a generation of young Chinese activists who stood up to their government and Mr. Xi out of a sense of justice and dignity. They are not professional revolutionaries but accidental activists who felt compelled to speak out when Mr. Xi was turning their country into a giant jail and their future into a black hole.
. . . Mr. Li was, and is, a reluctant hero. A year later, he has paid a high personal cost. At times he cried and thought about quitting. But the punishments from the Chinese state kept piling on. He had no way back so he has pushed forward.
It is too risky for him to return to China. The police harass his parents regularly. All his Chinese accounts relating to banking, payments and even games have been frozen. He lost his only source of income in Milan, where he studied and lived since 2015; he said it was because the company he partnered with got a letter from the Chinese embassy. He has received death threats, almost on a weekly basis. A man showed up at his apartment, an address he said he had shared only with the Chinese consulate. Mr. Li has moved four times in the past year to stay safe."
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