When Thai pro-democracy protesters were water cannoned in front of the Government House at a protest on November 17th, one Twitter user commented, “unfortunately the Thai riot police took ‘be water’ [the Hong Kong protest slogan] as inspiration.”
“So be ducks!” Badiucao wrote, with two of his cartoons attached: one of superman pulling his shirt open to reveal the smiling face of a rubber duck, the other of a raincoat-clad protester sitting atop a large rubber duck. The cartoons were an homage to the inflatable ducks that had protected some protesters from jets of water and Methylene blue.
The cartoons ricocheted across Thai social media, as the next day rubber ducks rose to political prominence. For many Thais in the Milk Tea Alliance, it was their first encounter with the inimitable wit of Badiucao.
The “artful dissident” has been profiled by all manner of publications from TIME, to the Financial Times, to the New York Times to the BBC. His satirical cartoons are widely shared across Chinese social media, and often evade Beijing’s censors. Now, he’s making art for the Milk Tea Alliance.
For him, the Alliance has functional as well as symbolic meaning. “I think it represents the very sense of human rights, which is that the basic desire of human beings, for freedom or democracy, really are universal.”
Simultaneously, “it’s also beneficial to create this new topic that can shine in the media for a longer time, in a way that it will introduce the situation of Hong Kong and Thailand to the free world.” Badiucao sees it as a way to raise international support for both causes.
“The Milk Tea Alliance is kind of catchy, cute – like Asian culture – and it’s very practical, to be honest. Although it’s very spontaneous, there’s a lot of political wisdom.”
The Man Behind the Art
Throughout his work, he sees his humor as asserting the power of the powerless. “It takes authority away from monarchies or militaries or the government, because it shows that the powerless are not afraid of the powerful, and that’s the game changer,” he declares.
Badiucao and his family have been personally hounded by the Chinese Communist Party, ever since his identity was compromised in 2019. As is chronicled in the Australian documentary China’s Artful Dissident by SBS, the artist was on his way to a major exhibition in Hong Kong, which was subsequently cancelled for safety reasons. He has lived in exile in Australia since 2009.
The political cartoonist comes from a long legacy of ‘artful dissidents.’ His grandparents were filmmakers in China during the 1920s and 1950s but were persecuted in the anti-intellectual movement that took place afterward and lost their lives. His parents grew up orphans, cautioning him against the world of art. “That part of my family history made me understand that it is dangerous to make art, especially in China,” he recalls. “That generation paid in lives for what they pursued.”
Baidiucao inherited that legacy, and also a deep, intricate understanding of Chinese history. It is rather odd, almost exoticizing, then that both TIME and the New York Times date his political awakening to a single sensational moment: when he first watched a documentary on Tian An Men. “Born in China in 1986, Badiucao grew up in a society where all mention of the Tiananmen massacre is fanatically censored,” TIME writes. “The political cartoonist Badiucao still remembers the sultry Shanghai afternoon when he stumbled upon a video about the Tiananmen massacre of 1989 — and his world turned upside down,” the New York Times reports.
Of course, the truth is more nuanced. “I would be telling a lie if I just became pro-democracy after watching one documentary,” he says. “In reality, it’s a longer process and cannot be separated from my family history and my understanding of Chinese history.”
The Power of Popular Images
As someone who deploys popular images in his art, he has actively supported the symbolism of the Milk Tea Alliance: the rubber duck, the Thai government’s container box barrier, to name a few. In his analysis, it helps spread the movement while evading the government: “Within the movement, you have this kind of sacred animal, this sacred gesture, this sacred color, this interesting food – Milk Tea – and it’s very catchy and common in daily life, it makes it very hard to censor for the authorities.”
“The movement hijacked the concept, the very meaning of the yellow duck, bringing it new meaning as the superhero of the moment. The authorities have no way to stop that information from spreading.”
He points to Hong Kong, where protesters began holding up blank signs in defiance of authorities – something that highlighted the draconian nature of the new National Security Law.
In his own work, he creates recognizable, ‘catchy’ art by drawing heavily from popular culture, memes and popular artwork. Although this excludes from the world of high art where The Art Newspaper argues he is “virtually unknown,” he’s able to reach a far wider audience this way.
“Personally, I like to play against what is already existing in authority – for a very long time, I am mimicking the propaganda the CCP’s visual language and twisting it into a dissident language”
The Milk Tea Alliance, in Badiucao’s Words
While he sees differences between Thailand’s political history and Hong Kong’s – Thailand’s longstanding protest culture, for example – he sees Thai protesters deploy a similar type of satirical humor. In that sense, the uptake of his art among Thai protesters has not been surprising – but is still something he feels grateful for.
“I feel very honored and privileged to use my art to help you [Thai people], and in the future I will continue to do so, and I would encourage more people to join me to support Thais democratic movement as well.”
In his estimation, the Milk Tea Alliance will continue to live on. The Alliance goes beyond simple protest-sharing techniques: really, it allows Hong Kongers and those who support Hong Kong to vicariously continue their resistance.
“We are really supporting Thailand’s protests as if it is our own protest, because in our land, in China, or in Hong Kong, it is not possible to do so anymore. So we really fulfill our own dream when we see young Thai people on the streets – it’s also helping us sustain a dream of freedom or democracy.”
“By supporting the Thai movement, we are having our own therapy, we empower ourselves, as if we have a second chance to live in the protests with your people.”
The power, and promise, of satirical humor will live on, even in societies with the strictest censorship. In that way, the Thai government will never truly defeat the Milk Tea Alliance. And as long as his art continues to be shared far and wide, the CCP will never defeat Badiucao.