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       ‘I Have No Future’: China’s Rebel Influencer Is Still Paying a Price

       Li Ying used social media to help tell the world about last year’s protests. Now in exile, he has been threatened and lost his livelihood for his defiance.

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       Credit...Xinmei Liu

       By Li Yuan

       Dec. 12, 2023, 12:00 a.m. ET

       阅读简体中文版 阅读繁体中文版

       In November 2022, Li Ying was a painter and art school graduate in Milan, living in a state of sadness, fear and despair. China’s strict pandemic policies had kept him from seeing his parents for three years, and he was unsure where his country was heading.

       In China, after enduring endless Covid tests, quarantines and lockdowns, people staged the most widespread protests the country had seen in decades, many holding roughly letter-size paper to demonstrate defiance against censorship and tyranny, in what has been called the White Paper movement.

       Then Mr. Li did something that he never anticipated would become so significant: He turned his Twitter account into an information clearinghouse. People inside China sent him photos, videos and other witness accounts, at times more than a dozen per second, that would otherwise be censored on the Chinese internet. He used Twitter, which is banned in China, to broadcast them to the world. The avatar on Mr. Li’s account, his drawing of a cat that is both cute and menacing, became famous.

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       Li Yuan writes the New New World column, which focuses on the intersection of technology, business and politics in China and across Asia. More about Li Yuan

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