Chinese Animal Lib: An Emerging Social Movement

Abstract

There have been many dozens, of political movements, major and minor, in China since 1949, all initiated, staged and led by the Chinese government, and in most if not all cases, they were movements of some Chinese people against some other Chinese people. Major political movements and upheavals ended after the Cultural Revolution, but small-scale, targeted campaigns are never far away from daily life in China. As a sign of a progress, in the last three decades many Chinese have begun to have the luxury of not participating in some of the campaigns. For our purposes, China is undergoing a movement of an entirely different kind — an animal liberation movement. When I said this to The New York Times in 2011,¹ I was conscious of the fact that not everyone inside and outside China would agree or see such a movement coming. This emerging moral awakening and personal participation in helping and caring for animals in the last few years can be gauged in a number of ways:

• major rescue efforts of cats and dogs being transported for human consumption;

• homeless animal shelters and individuals who rescue and help homeless and abused animals, assisting and rehoming them and organizing TNR (trap-neuter-return) programs;

• animal advocacy groups, individual advocates and ordinary animal lovers who speak up against animal cruelty and abuse;

• organized events of homeless animal adoption days in major Chinese cities;

• charity events and individual donations that support and sustain rescued homeless animals across China;

• community publicity and advertising on caring for animals and anticruelty awareness by animal NGOs;

• animal cruelty awareness messages in official media and social media about animal protection and warnings about animal cruelty products, with celebrities joining up;

• educational and promotional work about loving animal for primary and secondary school and university students by animal NGOs and volunteers;

• non-governmental efforts for legislative protection of animals.