Porn Cartoons and Death Threats: One Woman Battles China’s Trolls

Another day brings another set of crude online cartoons and death threats for Vicky Xu, but she told Newsweek she won’t be silenced. Rather than ignoring them, she reposts them for all to see.

“I guess I have no choice but doing a PowerPoint presentation of these cartoons at my next comedy show,” Xu said in one post on X, formerly Twitter, as she shared a set of sexualized drawings.

Xu, formerly a Chinese citizen and currently in Australia, has been under attack since a report she wrote over four years ago on forced labor of the Uyghur minority in northwestern China. Branded a traitor in Chinese media, she faces waves of harassment every time her profile rises.

The attacks are typical of those that online researchers say are sponsored by the Chinese government on critics abroad as a form of transnational repression, even if those behind them may be individuals rather than state employees. Cartoons also show Xu as a lackey of the West and American interests.

“My knowledge would suggest that this is a coordinated campaign coming from the Chinese government to harass and intimidate me into silence or withdraw from public life or expression,” journalist, researcher and part-time comedian Xu told Newsweek.

“I think, that they’re working around the clock producing new stuff every day is impressive…because there’s so much propaganda about me that a lot of the hate I receive is actually voluntary coming from like real people in real accounts as well.”

China’s embassy in Australia did not respond to a Newsweek request for comment.

Concerted online attacks organized by the Chinese Communist Party against women of Asian descent who have spoken out on China were the subject of a report in 2022 by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute think tank. Numerous studies worldwide have shown that women are more likely than men to face online attacks and that these can intimidate them into silence.

Xu said that she had been intimidated at first, but now pushes back.

“The first time this happened, it wasn’t funny at all. It was just traumatising. But then, over time, I kind of developed a certain kind of tolerance for it,” she said. “And then, I guess, because I’m a journalist, but I also moonlight as a comedian, so this is a goldmine for comedy.”

Online death threats had sometimes been comical or poetic, Xu said, giving examples.

“‘What’s going to happen first to you tomorrow—is it a car accident, or the sunrise?’ I’m just like, huh,” Xu said.

“Then there’s like, ‘we’re going to mix your ashes with rice and eat it.’ And I was like, sure, do that if you think that’s gonna be good for y’all. A lot of it is just kind of hilarious, so I’m not as affected now. But yeah, it’s not just happening to me, it’s happening to a bunch of other women.”

More concerning than online threats is the possibility of a real-life attack of a type that is not unknown to Chinese dissidents abroad.

Xu said Australian police warned her last year that Chinese spies were looking for her address.

The recent wave of online attacks followed comments with strong language Xu had made in Australian media criticizing China’s panda diplomacy, and over the visit to Canberra of Chinese Premier Li Qiang. She also said Australian police had used excessive force at a protest by critics of the Communist Party.

The Australian Federal Police declined to comment on that or on the death threats.

Xu said that despite her responses on social media to those attacking her, she was not making light of the situation, and that other women could suffer a greater impact than her, particularly older Chinese activists living in more conservative diaspora communities.

“The way I deal with that is a very personal approach,” she said.

“Most women that I know, like prominent women who deal with this sort of stuff, they ignore it, they don’t respond, they don’t address that…and they don’t want to amplify it in any way. But then they still have to suffer the consequences in private. They still have to deal with it.”