Counterattack unfolds across four vertical panels—each one a tactical escalation. The imagery is lifted from mid-century American advertisements: stylized women, cheerful poses, commercial charm. Overlaid in bold red Chinese text is a Cold War-era propaganda phrase from Mao Tse Tung, originally directed toward Japanese aggression in 1939:
人不犯我。
我不犯人。
人若犯我。
我必犯人。
(If we are not attacked, we will not attack. But if we are attacked, we will certainly counterattack.)

The phrase fractures in this context. Is it spoken by the women? To them? About them? The ambiguity destabilizes the panels. The visual seduction of American femininity collides with the militarized logic of Maoist resistance. The work doesn’t parody propaganda—it weaponizes aesthetic contradiction.

Within The Triumph of Romanticism, Counterattack operates as a rupture. It reframes charm as threat, beauty as battleground, and emotional posture as political doctrine. The panels don’t tell a story. They issue a warning.