Based on the posts of an X account that bears the name of Dutch cartoonist Bart van Leeuwen, a profile picture of his face and short professional bio, one would think the Amsterdam-based artist is a staunch supporter of China and fierce critic of the United States.
In one post, the account blasts what it calls Washington’s “fallacies against the Chinese economy,” accompanied by a cartoon from the Global Times — a Beijing-controlled media outlet — showing Uncle Sam aiming but failing to hit a target emblazoned with the words “China’s economy.”
But Van Leeuwen didn’t make the posts. In fact, this account doesn’t even belong to him.
It belongs to a China-connected network on X of “spamouflage” accounts, which pretend to be the work of real people but are in reality controlled by robots sending out messages designed to shape public opinion.
Readers of Mike Peterson’s Comic Strip of the Day column here at The Daily Cartoonist know Bart van Leeuwen, and his stylish cartoons with amazingly rendered caricatured faces of political figures placed on almost child-like bodies, that are occasionally featured on CSotD. Apparently Chinese propagandists also took notice and appropriated van Leeuwen’s style, face, and signature for their own purposes.
Van Leeuwen confirmed in an interview with VOA Mandarin that he had nothing to do with and was not aware of the fake account.
“It’s ironic that my identity, being a political cartoonist, is being used for political propaganda,” he told VOA in a written statement.
The real Van Leeuwen is an award-winning cartoonist whose works have been published on news outlets around the world, such as the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the Korea Times, Sing Tao Daily in Hong Kong and Gulf Today in the United Arab Emirates.
