• 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
    • OP-EDS
    • FEATURED
    • TESTIMONIES
  • 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

Related articles

  • UK, the World Cup of Human Rights: Lords 1, Government and China 0

    UK, the World Cup of Human Rights: Lords 1, Government and China 0

  • Wang Zang and Wang Li: Marry a Poet and Go to Jail

    Wang Zang and Wang Li: Marry a Poet and Go to Jail

  • Hong Kong: Christian Scholar Peng Manyuan Released but Not Rehabilitated

    Hong Kong: Christian Scholar Peng Manyuan Released but Not Rehabilitated

  • Where is Hu Xinyu? A New Scandal Rocks the CCP

    Where is Hu Xinyu? A New Scandal Rocks the CCP

Keep Reading

  • Pastor Hao Zhiwei: 8-Year Prison Sentence Confirmed on Appeal
    Pastor Hao Zhiwei: 8-Year Prison Sentence Confirmed on Appeal

    The female pastor from Hubei, was never forgiven for having abandoned the CCP-controlled Three-Self Church, where she was once a rising star. 

  • Chinese Christians Compelled to Honor Deceased CCP Leader Jiang Zemin
    Chinese Christians Compelled to Honor Deceased CCP Leader Jiang Zemin

    Three-Self Church honors him as “a great Marxist we love and miss” and says he did “a good job in religious work.” In fact, he increased surveillance and persecuted believers.

  • Stricter Rules on Private Tutoring Protect Ideology Rather than Parents
    Stricter Rules on Private Tutoring Protect Ideology Rather than Parents

    There were real concerns about the fees and role of tutoring firms. But as usual the CCP took the opportunity to impose more ideological control.

  • China #1 “Cult-Buster” vs. China’s #1 Doctor: Who Will Win?
    China #1 “Cult-Buster” vs. China’s #1 Doctor: Who Will Win?

    “Hero of atheism” and anti-cultist Sima Nan vilifies Zhang Wenhong, the chief of the anti-COVID Shanghai Medical Treatment Expert Group.

Primary Sidebar

Support Bitter Winter

Learn More

Follow us

Newsletter

Most Read

  • Pro-Chinese Propaganda by The World Muslim Communities Council: Uyghurs Strike Back by Gulfiye Y
  • Zhanargul Zhumatai: “Help Me, I Just Want to Leave China” by Ruth Ingram
  • L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology, and the Visual Arts. 1. The Aesthetic Mind by Massimo Introvigne
  • Stricter Rules on Private Tutoring Protect Ideology Rather than Parents by Wang Zhipeng
  • Japan Religious Donations Law. 4. The Return of Brainwashing by Massimo Introvigne
  • Hong Kong: Christian Scholar Peng Manyuan Released but Not Rehabilitated by Gladys Kwok
  • The Weaponization of the CCP’s “Zero COVID” Against Tibet by Marco Respinti
  • L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology, and the Visual Arts. 3. Art as Communication by Massimo Introvigne
  • L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology, and the Visual Arts. 4. Art and Illustration by Massimo Introvigne
  • L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology, and the Visual Arts. 5. Professionals vs. Amateurs by Massimo Introvigne

CHINA PERSECUTION MAP -SEARCH NEWS BY REGION

clickable geographical map of china, with regions

Footer

Instant Exclusive News
Instant Exclusive News

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

Follow us

LINKS

orlir-logo hrwf-logo cesnur-logo

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