Short answers, pulled from the story.
Manhua are Chinese-language comics produced in Greater China. The word was reintroduced in its modern sense by Feng Zikai in 1925 through his series Zikai Manhua in the Wenxue Zhoubao. The term displaced dozens of competing names and came to cover all Chinese comic materials.
The first successful manhua magazine, Shanghai Sketch (also called Shanghai Manhua), first published in 1928. The Shanghai Sketch Society had been established the year before, in 1927. Between 1934 and 1937, roughly 17 manhua magazines were being published in Shanghai.
Manhua served as a political tool from its earliest days. Sun Yat-Sen used Hong Kong's manhua to spread anti-Qing propaganda before establishing the Republic of China in 1911. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, cartoonists including Ye Qianyu waged "cartoon guerilla warfare" by mounting exhibitions and publishing in inland cities like Hankou.
China strictly controls print publishing, pushing many cartoonists to social media. Rebel Pepper's Sina Weibo account had been deleted over 180 times by 2012. Reuters reported in September 2013 that roughly 150 censors monitored Sina Weibo around the clock while automated systems processed around three million posts per day.
The Chinese characters for manhua, Japanese manga, and Korean manhwa are identical. Mainland Chinese manhua is read left to right, while Taiwanese and Hong Kong manhua reads right to left following the Japanese model. These differences are prescribed by government policy in each territory. Modern Chinese-style manhua, as established by the 1982 Chinese Hero, features more realistic drawings than manga and is typically published in full color.
Si loin et si proche by Chinese writer and illustrator Xiao Bai won the Gold Award at the 4th International Manga Award in 2011. Several other manhua have won Silver and Bronze Awards at the same international competition.