A cartoon that appears to refer to the 1989 massacre in Tiananmen Square has been printed in a Chinese newspaper.

The image, in the Southern Metropolitan Daily, shows a boy drawing a person standing in front of three tanks.

Online commentators have likened the image to the photograph of "tank man", the protester who stopped a column of tanks during the demonstrations.

It appeared in the paper days before the 21st anniversary of the crackdown in and around Tiananmen Square.