Chinese Cartoonists Try to Push Boundaries

Marco Werman speaks with political cartoonist Joel Pett of the Lexington Herald Leader about the cartoonists he met on a recent trip to China. Pett says there are two types of political cartoonists in China: Older men employed by established state-run media outlets who adhere to the party line and younger Web-savvy cartoonists whose work appears in the commercial media and on blogs, Facebook and Twitter. One of the most talented and gutsy is Kuang Biao. He’s dared to comment on subjects as sensitive as China’s tainted milk scandal and the now-in-exile activist Chen Guangcheng.

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Marco Werman: There is public private tension in another sector of China, Political Cartooning. Yup, there are Political Cartoonists in tightly controlled China. Some cartoonist work for official government run publications others do there cartooning for private “new media” outlets or simply post there stuff right on the web. Political cartoonist Joel Pett of the Lexington Herald Leader got to know both types on a recent trip to China. He was there to talk about cartooning and freedom of expression. Pett says he immediately clicked with his Chinese counterparts.

Joel Pett: there is actually a really special kind of a bond among cartoonists anywhere you go in the world, I assume its our shared futility at railing against injustice in authority and arbitrariness but it could just be something in the ink. I don’t know…

Werman: So what would you say in terms of China? You say.. does it seem to the Chinese cartoonists that what they are doing is futile? Is the cartooning scene growing or is it kind of repressed right now?

Pett: You know, its rare for me to meet another cartoonist with as dim a view of the usefulness of the craft as I have. No, they didn’t seem that way at all, especially the young ones seemed very excited and energized by it despite the fact that they were taking risks that I have to tell you I’m not sure I would have the courage to take.

Werman: Like what?

Pett: Well like publishing online inflammatory anti-government cartoons, getting shut down on your website 180 times and I love this Marco, getting “invited to tea”. Which is the euphemism for what happens when the government wants to speak to you about what’s going on with your work.

Werman: really? That’s what they tell the cartoonists when they don’t like what they see?

Pett: Yeah they “invite them to tea”. Yeah…And then they set you down, there really is tea apparently but you get the message

Werman: So the web has provided a new forum for cartoonists in China it sounds like, is it a forum that both appeals to them but also scares them a little bit?

Pett: You know, some aspects of it are a lot like here, you can get a vast audience but you cant get paid but of course here, you know, there is no risk of having anyone “invite you to tea”

Werman: Right. And If you are a cartoonist who works for state run Chinese media what limits are there on what you can draw about?

Pett: Well you know a lot of the cartoons are really good just not the ones about the Chinese government itself. I mean if you are drawing about fishing rights in the South China sea or something internationally, you know, the cartoons are fine.

Werman: was there one cartoon that struck you in particular where it was wow that’s really clever, it doesn’t really get at anything super provocative but its a very clever thing and I like it.

Pett: the one that really got me was there was one, you know some of these cartoonists are essentially illustrators for op ed pieces, and there was one op ed piece that said this entire uprising in Syria was a concoction of the US government to distract the American electorate from our weak economy.

Werman: Mmmm

Pett: To which I took great umbrage because if there is one thing Americans don’t need it is government help getting distracted ,we can do that ourselves. We have NASCAR, we have dancing with the stars. We can distract ourselves.

Werman: You went to china on a tour that was sponsored by the US state department. What’s there interest in political cartooning?

Pett: There interest is broadly promoting American values and in this case freedom of speech. They invite cartoonists, other journalists, librarians, various people with an interest in free speech issues to a lot of different places, to make a lot of different kinds presentations about free speech and editorial cartooning is just one of those albeit almost universally seen as on the cutting edge of free speech which I find interesting.

Werman: What was the most useful piece of, kind of, cartooning wisdom that you shared with the audiences?

Pett: Well… I wouldn’t go so far as to say I shared a lot of wisdom. I think what surprised a lot of the audiences the most was how rough I was on Obama and ,you know, the art form is generally negative so there aren’t a lot of laudatory cartoons about him and they kept asking me “what you got against Obama? Why do you hate him so much?” and I kept saying you know “Actually I don’t this is just part of the job to push authority to do better” So that surprised people.

Werman: What did you find most surprising about cartooning in China when you were there?

Pett: I was the most surprised at how open the young people are about their freedom of speech issues, when I was there 17 years a go I didn’t find that to be the case but at every stop this time or just about every stop the questions came immediately. You know, “what do you think the future of free speech issues is in china? How are we going to deal with the governments efforts to control communication? etc etc” You know, I don’t know how it will play out certainly regimes are capable as we see in Syria of some brutality. But it just seems to me like the day, if it hasn’t already arrived, is certainly coming when you just can’t control information…. and there is a billion of them….

Werman: Joel Pett, a Pulitzer prize winning cartoonist with Lexington Herald Leader he just spent 2 weeks traveling around China meeting with Chinese political cartoonists. Joel thanks a lot.

Pett: Marco, thank you. Its a great pleasure!

Werman: Again you can see some work by one of the cartoonists that Joel Pett met in China we have a slideshow at theworld.org

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Here’s a selection of his work.