Chinese digital art mocking West goes viral

BEIJING • A digital illustration by a prominent Chinese propaganda artist mocking Western governments, media and businesses critical of labour conditions in Xinjiang has gone viral on China's social media.

The digital art by the artist who goes by the name Wuheqilin, referring to a one-horned Chinese mythical beast, shows two figures with white pointed hoods interviewing a scarecrow in a field of cotton and black slaves.

One of the journalists holds up a microphone with a logo that looks similar to "BBC News".

Text at the bottom of the illustration reads: "Can you tell us what unfair treatment you have suffered, Miss Scarecrow?"

"I've been sexually assaulted and abused," a placard next to the scarecrow says.

Steadying the cross on which the scarecrow is held is a hooded figure wearing a Minneapolis police uniform, an apparent reference to the police officer who pressed his knee on the neck of a dying black man, Mr George Floyd, last year.

Western governments and rights groups have accused the authorities in the western Chinese region of Xinjiang of detaining and torturing Uighurs in camps, drawing fierce denials from Beijing, who says the camps are vocational training centres that help combat religious extremism.

Earlier this year, BBC reported that women in the camps had been subjected to rape, sexual abuse and torture.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said at the time that the BBC report was "without factual basis", and the people interviewed by the British media organisation have been "proved multiple times" to be "actors disseminating false information".

Last week, Swedish clothing retailer H&M faced a public backlash in China when social media users circulated a statement made by the company last year, announcing it would no longer source cotton from Xinjiang.

REUTERS