Videos of protests, information on police activity, and updates on arrests – Teacher Li Is Not Your Teacher published a deluge of real-time information gathered from common people.
Very little of it was available online or in China’s strictly regulated state media. One individual, Li Ying, an art school student, sat in a bedroom in Italy and carefully selected everything.
Since then, Mr. Li has developed into an important documentarian of information Beijing considers politically sensitive. His X account provides an insight into China under Xi Jinping, where the government’s increasing vice-like hold over information is evident.
Everything from large-scale demonstrations to minor protests, corruption to criminal activity, is assiduously removed from the Chinese internet, just to resurface on Mr. Li’s account.
According to him, this has brought him the anger of the authorities. He also provided a vivid image of Beijing’s tactics of coercing dissidents abroad in an interview with the news. He claimed that as part of a planned campaign of intimidation, the Chinese government is targeting not just him but also his friends, family, and X fans.
Since the Chinese government has not responded, we are unable to independently verify each and every claim made by Mr. Li. However, rights organizations, other countries, and activists have documented the strategies he described.
