In a case that has ignited widespread public anger across China, authorities in the southwestern megacity of Chongqing have taken a man identified only by his surname Li into custody over allegations that he tortured adopted dogs and cats, then profited by selling graphic footage of the abuse online. The incident has thrown a spotlight on shifting public attitudes toward animal welfare across the country, as grassroots demand grows for formal legal protections for animals long absent from Chinese statute books.
The scheme unraveled after a woman who offered her puppies for free adoption shared her suspicious experience with friends, who then brought the case to wider public attention on Chinese social media. Earlier this month, Li posted an adoption advertisement on the popular short-video platform Douyin, posing as a loving pet owner to lure vulnerable animals. According to local media reports, Li claimed his two young children adored puppies, a fabricated backstory designed to convince people to entrust their pets to him.
The true horror of his actions emerged Sunday, when animal welfare volunteers found one of the puppies Li had adopted abandoned in the stairwell of his apartment complex. The young dog had suffered a broken leg, a severed tail, and severe facial swelling, and later died from its injuries. Further investigation uncovered that Li had abused multiple adopted cats and dogs, recording the abuse to sell the violent clips to buyers online.
By early this week, news of the abuse had sparked mass public protest, with more than 100 demonstrators gathering outside Li’s residential building to demand accountability. Many carried signs calling for systemic change, with placards reading “Those who abuse animals practice cruelty toward all living things” and “Stop animal abuse — we urgently call for laws banning animal cruelty.”
Video footage posted to social media showed police responding to the protest, removing demonstrators from the premises, with some activists reporting they were barred from recording or sharing images of the demonstration online. Following Li’s detention, public calls for harsh legal penalty for the suspect have flooded Chinese social media platforms. One top-voted comment on Weibo, China’s leading microblogging platform, read, “This is appalling. I fully support severe punishment.”
Currently, no formal national laws in China criminalize animal cruelty, meaning authorities have not yet publicly disclosed what specific charges Li is being investigated for. Even without formal legal protections, public awareness of animal welfare issues has risen sharply across China in recent years, driven in large part by growing pet ownership and grassroots advocacy on social media. This high-profile case has become a flashpoint for broader demands for legislative change, with activists and ordinary citizens increasingly pushing for the government to add animal cruelty statutes to the national legal code.