Do protests in China against lockdowns put the regime at risk?
The harshness of zero Covid policies has prompted a series of large anti-government protests in China. Here are facts and expert comments
The cork has popped. Three years of inflexible zero-Covid policies, endless lockdowns, mass testing and exhausting quarantines have exasperated the Chinese people, who took to the streets this weekend brandishing white papers in protest against censorship and shouting slogans that in many cases have veered towards politics by targeting the regime and Xi Jinping himself.
The fire in Urumqi
The spark, in the literal sense of the term, was ignited after a tragic fire in a building in the capital of the western province of Xinjiang , Urumqi, which, according to the PA , caused ten deaths and nine injuries.
As shown by some videos circulated on the Chinese web, the building would have turned into a death trap for the occupants who were forced into isolation after the proclamation of a long city lockdown. The measures taken to confine the residents to their apartments were draconian and would have slowed down the rescue efforts by the firefighters.
The anger of the residents
According to some videos viewed by CNN and Reuters , the following day hundreds of people gathered in a square in Urumqi to demand an end to the lockdown.
A video shows people singing the national anthem and the line that reads "Rise up, you who refuse to be slaves." Another video , widely circulated on Chinese social media, shows a large group of people marching towards a government building yelling "End the lockdown".
The reaction of the authorities
Taken aback by the mobilization of residents, local government officials called a press conference the day after the protests, during which they promised to "progressively" ease the confinement measures.
But the relaxation of the rules, they added, will only apply to neighborhoods considered "low risk" whose inhabitants will be allowed moderate freedom of movement.
In any case, zealous officials defended their contagion containment strategy. Among these, the Urumqi propaganda chief, Sui Rong, argued that thanks to the lockdowns "the cases of Covid in society have basically been eliminated".
Protests are rampant
The Urumqi tragedy has caused quite a stir in China, despite the censorship, also because it has struck a very tight chord in a population exhausted by yet another round of lockdowns.
According to CNN , there are sixteen cities in the People's Republic where people took to the streets to protest, with dozens of other locations affected by milder mobilizations.
The most sensational demonstration, CNN continues, was recorded in the metropolis of Shanghai, also gripped by isolation a few months after the very harsh and almost infinite lockdown imposed by the authorities in the spring.
Hundreds of people gathered on Urumqi Street to commemorate the victims of the fire in Xinjiang. On the spot there were lighted candles, flowers and the now famous blank sheets that made the BBC talk of an "A4 revolution".
It is here that clear political slogans have been heard, such as "we need human rights and freedom", "we do not want dictatorship, we want democracy" and even exhortations to Xi Jinping to "resign".
The police soon arrived and proceeded to disperse the crowd and arrest some protesters. Among those detained there was also a BBC reporter , Edward Lawrence, who was allegedly beaten and handcuffed by the police.
Despite the repression, the next day a crowd materialized again in Urumqi Street, where it was greeted by a strong police garrison.
The protest also reaches Beijing
On Sunday, protests spread to cities such as Beijing, Chengdu, Guangzhou and Wuhan. Here too the protesters have clamored not only for an end to the lockdowns but also for political freedoms.
In the capital, the protests lasted until yesterday. Hundreds of young people gathered for a vigil near the Liangma River and then marched towards the city center.
Here, too, political slogans such as "we want freedom" were heard. In the early hours of the morning, according to the Guardian , there were at least a thousand people concentrated in the third ring street, disobeying police orders to disperse.
Universities in fibrillation
The protest then reached the country's universities, a particularly sensitive place for the Communist Party, fearful of a repetition of the movement that led to the famous events in Tiananmen Square.
In the early hours of Sunday morning, hundreds of students gathered at the prestigious Peking University against the backdrop of a slogan painted in red paint on the wall that read: “Say no to lockdowns and yes to freedom. No to Covid tests and yes to food ”.
At the same time, hundreds of students from Tsinghua University staged a protest documented by numerous videos in which protesters can be heard shouting "democracy and the rule of law, freedom of expression!".
The statements of the government spokesman
As can be seen from the statements made by Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian, the line taken by the government has been to minimize the extent of the protests and dissent.
In response to reporters' questions, Zhao said that "what you have mentioned does not reflect what actually happened."
"We believe – added the spokesman – that with the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party … our fight against Covid 19 will be successful".
Expert commentary
As Minxin Pei, a professor at Claremont McKenna College and an expert on Chinese politics, observed to the New York Times , the scenes seen in China these days are "unprecedented".
“This reflects”, adds the teacher, “a great amount of frustration with anti-Covid policies. People are just fed up."
According to Dali Yang, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, the attitude of Chinese citizens has drastically changed. “In the first two years of Covid,” Dali told Reuters , “people trusted the government to make the best decisions to keep them safe from the virus. Now, however, people ask questions and are circumspect when it comes to obeying orders”.
Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University and a scholar of Chinese politics and media, notes that while it is not uncommon for isolated protests to erupt in China, protesters never directly target the government and its leadership.
"This is a different type of protest", observes the professor interviewed by CNN , "from the more localized ones that we have seen recur in the last twenty years and which tend to focus the claims on precise local officials and on issues of strict economic and social". What they are witnessing these days is "the harshest expression of political grievances together with concerns about the lockdown".
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/proteste-cina-zero-covid/ on Tue, 29 Nov 2022 07:26:25 +0000.