• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer
  • HOME
  • ABOUT CHINA
    • NEWS
    • TESTIMONIES
    • OP-EDS
    • FEATURED
    • GLOSSARY
    • CHINA PERSECUTION MAP
  • FROM THE WORLD
    • NEWS GLOBAL
    • TESTIMONIES GLOBAL
    • OP-EDS GLOBAL
    • FEATURED GLOBAL
  • INTERVIEWS
  • DOCUMENTS AND TRANSLATIONS
    • DOCUMENTS
    • THE TAI JI MEN CASE
    • TRANSLATIONS
    • EVENTS
  • ABOUT
  • EDITORIAL BOARD
  • TOPICS

Bitter Winter

A magazine on religious liberty and human rights

three friends of winter
Home / China / News China

Xiao Liang: Artist Arrested for Painting Portrait of Sitong Bridge Protester

12/14/2022Hu Zimo |

Peng Lifa, who hung banners with anti-Xi-Jinping slogans on a bridge in Beijing, is in jail but remains the man the CCP is most afraid of.

by Hu Zimo

Painter Xiao Liang and his now famous portrait of Peng Lifa. From Twitter.
Painter Xiao Liang and his now famous portrait of Peng Lifa. From Twitter.

Bitter Winter and, to tell the truth with some delay, large-circulation Western media such as The New York Times may acknowledge Peng Lifa, a.k.a. Peng Zaizhou (彭载舟), the man who on October 13 managed to hang two banners with anti-Xi-Jinping slogans on Beijing’s Sitong Bridge, as a hero. The Times called him a “prophet” and “the man who lighted the spark in the darkness,” while acknowledging that after he was arrested, he disappeared. His whereabouts are unknown and we can only hope he is still alive.

Peng Lifa. From Twitter.
Peng Lifa. From Twitter.

However, it is an entirely different matter to hail Peng Lifa, or even simply refer to him, in China. Just ask Xiao Liang, an artist from Nanchang, the capital of Jiangxi province. He painted a simple portrait of Peng Lifa and posted it on Twitter, without comments. Xiao was detained, and has now been formally arrested. Somebody, presumably from the police, got access to his Twitter account and, to be on the safer side, deleted all his posts and eliminated all his followers, although Twitter is officially blocked in China.

Xiao was popular on social media for his dramatic portraits. He had escaped arrest when he posted earlier a homage to Ukrainian female soldiers and a portrait of Ukrainian President Zelensky, calling him an “anti-fascist hero” and challenging the official Chinese narrative on the Ukrainian war.

Zelensky and the Ukrainian female soldier, by Xiao Liang. From Twitter.
Zelensky and the Ukrainian female soldier, by Xiao Liang. From Twitter.

The whereabouts of Xiao are also unknown.

Peng Lifa’s protest was indeed unprecedented, and led to what non-Chinese may regard as a paranoid surveillance of all the thousands of bridges existing in Beijing and other main cities. He has becoming the “Bridge Man,” and has been compared to the “Tank Man” of the iconic image of the Tiananmen Square protests and massacre of 1989.

Students with white paper sheets chanting the name of Peng Lifa under Sitong Bridge, Beijing. From Twitter.
Students with white paper sheets chanting the name of Peng Lifa under Sitong Bridge, Beijing. From Twitter.

Last month, the police was not able to prevent hundreds of students from gathering under Sitong Bridge with the famous white paper sheets in their hands, chanting the name of Peng Lifa. These protests eventually compelled the regime to revise the Zero COVID policy, but also made it extremely sensitive to any reference to Peng Lifa.

Tagged With: Censorship, Chinese Communist Party, Human Rights

bw-profile
Hu Zimo

Uses a pseudonym for security reasons.

Related articles

  • The Long Arm of the CCP Reaches Uyghurs Wherever They Escape

    The Long Arm of the CCP Reaches Uyghurs Wherever They Escape

  • ChatGPT-Type Chatbots in China: Allowed Only if They Provide “Socialist” Content 

    ChatGPT-Type Chatbots in China: Allowed Only if They Provide “Socialist” Content 

  • 12-Year-Old Boy Detained for Slapping a Statue of Chairman Mao

    12-Year-Old Boy Detained for Slapping a Statue of Chairman Mao

  • Dong Yuyu: Well-Known Journalist and Academic Indicted for “Espionage”

    Dong Yuyu: Well-Known Journalist and Academic Indicted for “Espionage”

Keep Reading

  • Sichuan Tibetan Writer Sentenced to 4 Years for Defending Tibetan Language
    Sichuan Tibetan Writer Sentenced to 4 Years for Defending Tibetan Language

    Zangkar Jamyang was declared a “separatist” for having posted an article on the Internet.

  • Hong-Kong-Style National Security Law Comes to Macau
    Hong-Kong-Style National Security Law Comes to Macau

    Macau seemed quiet. But now the CCP has decided that it is at risk of “foreign infiltrations,” and needs a security law as tough as in Hong Kong. 

  • Taiyuan Pastors Told to Teach Christians to “Always Follow the Party”
    Taiyuan Pastors Told to Teach Christians to “Always Follow the Party”

    A plan for church activities hardly includes anything Christian, and calls for studying and teaching the works of Marx and Xi Jinping, and the CCP official documents.

  • Human Rights Watchdogs Urge EU to Review Its Relations with Pakistan
    Human Rights Watchdogs Urge EU to Review Its Relations with Pakistan

    A conference in Brussels called the attention on the intolerable situation of human rights and freedom of religion or belief in the Asian country.

Primary Sidebar

Support Bitter Winter

Learn More

Follow us

Newsletter

Most Read

  • There Are Christian Uyghurs, Too: New Organization Launched in London by Ruth Ingram
  • Hui Muslims Clash with Police Over Mosque’s “Sinicization” by Ma Guangyao
  • Xi Jinping: Beijing’ National Art Museum Is Not Socialist Enough by Hu Zimo
  • Russia: Lunatic Theory that Yellowstone Volcano Caused the War in Ukraine Gains Momentum by Massimo Introvigne
  • Occupied Ukraine: Anti-Cult “Experts” Target Moscow Patriarchate Dissident Priest by Massimo Introvigne
  • Chinese Agents Tried to Bribe U.S. Tax Officer in Anti-Falun-Gong Plot by Massimo Introvigne
  • Vandalism Against Catholic Churches on the Rise in Bavaria by PierLuigi Zoccatelli

CHINA PERSECUTION MAP -SEARCH NEWS BY REGION

clickable geographical map of china, with regions

Footer

EDITORIAL BOARD

Editor-in-Chief

MASSIMO INTROVIGNE

Director-in-Charge

MARCO RESPINTI

ADDRESS

CESNUR

Via Confienza 19,

10121 Turin, Italy,

Phone: 39-011-541950

E-MAIL

We welcome submission of unpublished contributions, news, and photographs. Each submission implies the authorization for us to edit and publish texts and photographs. We reserve the right to decide which submissions are suitable for publication. Please, write to INFO@BITTERWINTER.ORG Thank you.

Newsletter

LINKS

orlir-logo hrwf-logo cesnur-logo

Copyright © 2023 · Bitter Winter · PRIVACY POLICY· COOKIE POLICY