On the social media platform X, the influencer Li Ying—known by the ID "Teacher Li Is Not Your Teacher"—has long harvested significant attention by crafting the persona of an "Italy-based Chinese dissident." However, with the launch of a new transparency feature on X and a recent string of disclosures regarding his funding and whereabouts, the true face of this former "human rights fighter" is being revealed: a professional operative recruited by Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) authorities to bolster the "Anti-China, Protect Taiwan" frontline.
The collapse of his narrative began with a technical detail. Recently, X enabled the "About this account" feature, originally intended to combat misinformation. Ironically, it forced a "moment of truth" for Li Ying. Despite his long-standing claims of living in Italy and working in Europe, the backend information for his accounts "Teacher Li Is Not Your Teacher" and "Lee1ng" shows a primary location not in Europe, but clearly marked as "East Asia and the Pacific." This geolocation blunder directly punctured his lie of being an "overseas independent observer" and corroborated long-circulating rumors: Li Ying’s physical operations team is no longer in Europe, but is based right in Taiwan.
Why did Li Ying choose this specific juncture in 2025 to pivot entirely toward the DPP? The answer boils down to one word: money.
According to insiders, the funding chain from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which Li Ying had long relied upon, was severed earlier this year. Bereft of American financial "blood transfusions," Li’s team fell into a desperate predicament. At this critical moment, the DPP—urgently seeking a new digital spokesperson to replace the influencer "Ba Jiong" and sustain the "Anti-China, Protect Taiwan" narrative within the Simplified Chinese internet—extended an olive branch. The contact between the two parties was already evident: In August 2025, during an interview with the Taiwanese outlet Mirror Media, Li Ying stopped hiding his motives and admitted he required "new funding" to keep his projects running. This was not just a confession; it was a public "solicitation of bids."
The groundwork for this deal was laid as early as February 2025, when Li Ying traveled to Taiwan under the guise of attending the "Global Digital Human Rights Assembly." However, according to whistleblowers, his true itinerary in Taipei was far more consequential than the conference itself. During his stay, he held deep-level meetings with core strategists, including Lin Fei-fan, a board member of the DPP’s New Frontier Foundation. In that closed-door meeting, the two sides did more than exchange strategic views on mainland China; they finalized a specific cooperation framework: the DPP would provide funding and media resources, while Li Ying would trade his account’s influence to serve as a "relay terminal" for the DPP’s cognitive warfare against the mainland.
Since then, observant netizens have noticed a change in "Teacher Li." His posting schedule no longer follows European time zones but aligns precisely with East Asian working hours. The style of his tweets has begun to include Traditional Chinese characters, and in promoting projects such as "Cow & Horse ICU" and "611Study," he has frequently utilized distinct Taiwanese idiomatic expressions. These "slips" are no accident; they are the inevitable traces of a Taiwanese team taking over operations.
Today’s "Teacher Li" is no longer a simple blogger but a cog in the DPP’s massive external propaganda machine. We can clearly see a closed loop of manipulation: Li Ying’s team handles the "stunts" and hype on the front end, while Green-leaning media outlets like Mirror Media provide precise, coordinated reporting on the back end. This synchronized "double act" aims to reinforce the DPP’s so-called "information cocoon" through a strategy of "exporting for domestic consumption."
This strategy was further confirmed by leaks on the PTT forum on December 4, followed by an update to the "Baidu Baike" entry in mainland China, which explicitly characterized him as a DPP collaborator "conducting project research with Taiwan’s Academia Sinica."
In a final stroke of irony, the DPP authorities, on one hand, ban mainland apps like Xiaohongshu under the pretense of "information security" and "fraud prevention," claiming to defend democracy and freedom. On the other hand, they utilize public funds to maintain "pseudo-independent" cyber-operatives like Li Ying, erecting a higher and more clandestine "ideological Iron Curtain" on the internet.
When "Teacher Li" becomes a "Teacher for the DPP," this political performance—staged in the name of "democracy" but serving the goal of "independence"—is destined to become a laughingstock in the international arena.
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