Forget Oscars: Anti-graft cartoons a hit
Animations depict president close to the people and fighting corruption
The nationwide anti-graft campaign led by President Xi Jinping has reverberated among the public, with a series of animations about him and his political ideas becoming a hit on the Internet during Spring Festival.
Three clips featuring Xi and the campaign, each of which lasts about two minutes, compare the situation before and after the so-called mass-line campaign, the initiative aimed at cracking down on corruption and strengthening ties between officials and the people since 2013.
The first clip — Is the ‘Mass Line’ Campaign For Real? — shows how the central leadership has reduced public expenditures. For example, it says that last year the govern- ment auctioned off 110,000 vehicles and stopped construction on more than 2,000 government buildings.
The second clip — Is It Easier for the Public to Get Things Done with the Government? — presents difficulties residents once endured at government organs and how the situation has changed for the better, thanks to the efforts of the central leadership.
The third clip — Are Officials Really Scared? — highlights the worries of corrupt officials as illegal behaviors, such as accepting bribes, as well as unethical behavior, such as keeping mistresses, are exposed.
Xi in cartoon form is presented frequently in the clips. Sometimes he dines and talks with villagers as he visits the countryside, such as Lankao county in Henan province. Sometimes he waves a flag heralding the mass-line campaign.
The most frequent image is of Xi wielding a stick to beat a tiger, a reference to his crackdown on high-ranking corrupt officials.
The animations were first uploaded to Youku, the country’s popular video streaming website, last week and were subsequently picked up by other big video sites and some social media platforms, such as Sina Weibo and WeChat, in subsequent days.
By now, the clips have been played heavily on Youku, the first one having been viewed more than 1.1 million times.
Ruan Chuansheng, a criminal lawyer from Shanghai, spoke highly of the animations, saying that the videos will be helpful as the leadership pushes the anti-graft drive forward this year.
“It’s rare to see cartoon images of Chinese leaders, let alone making an animation about them,” Ruan said. “So the three clips show progress. They also show that our leadership would like to be close to the people.”
Yi Shenghua, a lawyer specializing in graft cases in Beijing, said the cartoon images and animations are an effective way to convey the leadership’s political ideas and much easier for the public to accept.
The three clips are credited to the unknown producer “Chaoyang Studio”. No more details were available.
The first time leaders were shown in cartoon form was in October 2013 in an animation called How They Became State Leaders. The producer of that is also unknown.