UPDATED
Hong Kong protesters call for 'freedom' as anger against China's Xi Jinping spreadsDake Kang
Nov 29 2022
Barely a month after granting himself new powers as China’s potential leader for life, Xi Jinping is facing a wave of public anger of the kind not seen for decades, sparked by his “zero-Covid” strategy that will soon enter its fourth year.
But it's “unimaginable” the government will back down given it has invested so much political capital in the policy, observers say.
Demonstrators poured into the streets over the weekend in cities including Shanghai and Beijing, criticising the policy, confronting police – and even calling for Xi to step down.
Meanwhile on Monday, demonstrators gathered in the semi-autonomous southern city of Hong Kong, where the pro-democracy movement was all but snuffed out by a harsh crackdown following months-long demonstrations that began in 2019.
Students at the Chinese University of Hong Kong chanted, “Freedom! Freedom!” in their native Cantonese, as well as “We don’t want revolution, we want reform!” in the Mandarin spoken in mainland China. Floral tributes were laid in the Central district that had been the epicentre of previous protests.
The widespread demonstrations are unprecedented since the army crushed the 1989 student-led pro-democracy movement centred on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.
Most protesters focused their anger on restrictions that can confine families to their homes for months and have been criticised as neither scientific nor effective. Some complained the system is failing to respond to their needs.
NG HAN GUAN/AP
Protesters hold up blank papers and hold flowers and candles as they march in protest in Beijing.
The cries for the resignation of Xi and the end of the Communist Party that has ruled China for 73 years could be deemed sedition, which is punishable by prison.
In response, police in Shanghai used pepper spray to drive away demonstrators, and dozens were detained in police sweeps and taken away in police vans and buses. China’s vast internal security apparatus is also famed for identifying people it considers troublemakers and picking them up later when few are watching.
The possibility of more protests is unclear. Government censors scrubbed the internet of videos and messages supporting them. And analysts say unless divisions emerge, the Communist Party should be able to contain the dissent.
China's stringent measures were originally accepted for minimising deaths while other countries suffered devastating waves of infections, but that consensus has begun to fray in recent weeks.
While the ruling party says anti-coronavirus measures should be “targeted and precise” and cause the least possible disruption to people's lives, local officials are threatened with losing their jobs or other punishments if outbreaks occur. They have responded by imposing quarantines and other restrictions that protesters say exceed what the central government allows.
Xi's unelected government doesn't seem too concerned with the hardships brought by the policy. This spring, millions of Shanghai residents were placed under a strict lockdown that resulted in food shortages, restricted access to medical care and economic pain. Nevertheless, in October, the city's party secretary, a Xi loyalist, was appointed to the Communist Party's No. 2 position.
NG HAN GUAN/AP
Protesters hold candles as they march in Beijing on Sunday.
The party has long imposed surveillance and travel restrictions on minorities including Tibetans and Muslim groups such as Uyghurs, more than 1 million of whom have been detained in camps where they are forced to renounce their traditional culture and religion and swear fealty to Xi.
But this weekend's protests included many members of the educated urban middle class from the ethnic Han majority. The ruling party relies on that group to abide by an unwritten post-Tiananmen agreement to accept autocratic rule in exchange for a better quality of life.
Now, it appears that old arrangement has ended as the party enforces control at the expense of the economy, said Hung Ho-fung of Johns Hopkins University.
“The party and the people are trying to seek a new equilibrium,” he said. “There will be some instability in the process.”
To develop into something on the scale of the 1989 protests would require clear divisions within the leadership that could be leveraged for change, Hung said.
NG HAN GUAN/AP
Chinese policemen form a line to stop protesters marching in Beijing.
Xi all but eliminated such threats at an October party congress. He broke with tradition and awarded himself a third five-year term as party leader and packed the seven-member Politburo Standing Committee with loyalists. Two potential rivals were sent into retirement.
“Without the clear signal of party leader divisions ... I would expect this kind of protest might not last very long,” Hung said.
It's “unimaginable” that Xi would back down, and the party is experienced in handling protests, Hung said.
Video 0:58China: Anti-Zero COVID Policy Protesters Clash With Police In Shanghai
China is now the only major country still trying to stop transmission of the virus that was first detected in the central city of Wuhan in late 2019.
The normally supportive head of the World Health Organisation has called “zero-Covid” unsustainable. Beijing dismissed his remarks as irresponsible, but public acceptance of the restrictions has worn thin.
People who are quarantined at home in some areas say they lack food and medicine. And the ruling party faced anger over the deaths of two children whose parents said antivirus controls hampered efforts to get emergency medical care.
Protests then erupted after a fire on Thursday killed at least 10 people in an apartment building in the city of Urumqi in the northwest, where some residents have been locked in their homes for four months. That prompted an outpouring of angry questions online about whether firefighters or people trying to escape were blocked by locked doors or other pandemic restrictions.
ANDY WONG/AP
Chinese President Xi Jinping. (File photo)
Yet Xi, an ardent nationalist, has politicised the issue to the point that exiting the zero-Covid policy could be seen as a loss to his reputation and authority.
Zero-Covid was “supposed to demonstrate the superiority of the ‘Chinese model’, but ended up demonstrating the risk that when authoritarian regimes make mistakes, those mistakes can be colossal”, said Andrew Nathan, a Chinese politics specialist at Columbia University. He edited The Tiananmen Papers, an insider account of the government's response to the 1989 protests.
“But I think the regime has backed itself into a corner and has no way to yield. It has lots of force, and if necessary, it will use it,” Nathan said. “If it could hold onto power in the face of the pro-democracy demonstrations of 1989, it can do so again now."
NG HAN GUAN/AP
Protesters hold up blank papers and chant slogans as they march in Beijing.
China censors rare, nationwide protests over hardcore Covid-19 restrictions
Demonstrators holding up white pieces of paper during a protest in Beijing on Nov 27, 2022.
REUTERS
SHANGHAI – China’s censors were working on Monday to extinguish signs of rare, social media-driven protests that flared across major cities over the weekend calling for political freedoms and an end to Covid-19 lockdowns.
Sunday saw people take to the streets in several major cities across China to call for an end to lockdowns and greater political freedoms, in a wave of nationwide protests not seen since pro-democracy rallies in 1989 were crushed.
A deadly fire last week in Urumqi, the capital of north-west China’s Xinjiang region, has become a catalyst for public anger, with many blaming Covid-19 lockdowns for hampering rescue efforts.
But they have also featured prominent calls for greater political freedoms – with some even demanding the resignation of China’s President Xi Jinping, recently re-appointed to an unprecedented third term as China’s leader.
Large crowds gathered on Sunday in the capital Beijing and Shanghai, where police clashed with protesters as they tried to stop groups from converging at Wulumuqi street, named after the Mandarin for Urumqi.
Crowds that gathered overnight – some of whom chanted “Xi Jinping, step down! CCP, step down!” – were dispersed by Sunday morning.
But in the afternoon, hundreds rallied in the same area with blank sheets of paper and flowers to hold what appeared to be a silent protest, an eyewitness told Agence France-Presse.
In the capital, at least 400 people gathered on the banks of a river for several hours, with some shouting: “We are all Xinjiang people! Go Chinese people!”
Reporters at the scene described the crowd singing the national anthem and listening to speeches, while on the other side of the canal bank, a line of police cars waited.
State censors appeared to have scrubbed Chinese social media of any news about the rallies, with the search terms “Liangma River”, “Urumqi Road” – sites of protests in Beijing and Shanghai – scrubbed of any references to the rallies on the Twitter-like Weibo platform.
Videos, including those showing university students singing in protest and rallies in other cities have also vanished from WeChat, replaced by notices saying the content was reported for “non-compliant or sensitive content”.
The Weibo search for the hashtag #A4 – a reference to the blank pieces of paper held up at rallies in a symbolic protest against censorship – also appeared to have been manipulated, showing only a handful of posts from the past day.
SHANGHAI – China’s censors were working on Monday to extinguish signs of rare, social media-driven protests that flared across major cities over the weekend calling for political freedoms and an end to Covid-19 lockdowns.
Sunday saw people take to the streets in several major cities across China to call for an end to lockdowns and greater political freedoms, in a wave of nationwide protests not seen since pro-democracy rallies in 1989 were crushed.
A deadly fire last week in Urumqi, the capital of north-west China’s Xinjiang region, has become a catalyst for public anger, with many blaming Covid-19 lockdowns for hampering rescue efforts.
But they have also featured prominent calls for greater political freedoms – with some even demanding the resignation of China’s President Xi Jinping, recently re-appointed to an unprecedented third term as China’s leader.
Large crowds gathered on Sunday in the capital Beijing and Shanghai, where police clashed with protesters as they tried to stop groups from converging at Wulumuqi street, named after the Mandarin for Urumqi.
Crowds that gathered overnight – some of whom chanted “Xi Jinping, step down! CCP, step down!” – were dispersed by Sunday morning.
But in the afternoon, hundreds rallied in the same area with blank sheets of paper and flowers to hold what appeared to be a silent protest, an eyewitness told Agence France-Presse.
In the capital, at least 400 people gathered on the banks of a river for several hours, with some shouting: “We are all Xinjiang people! Go Chinese people!”
Reporters at the scene described the crowd singing the national anthem and listening to speeches, while on the other side of the canal bank, a line of police cars waited.
State censors appeared to have scrubbed Chinese social media of any news about the rallies, with the search terms “Liangma River”, “Urumqi Road” – sites of protests in Beijing and Shanghai – scrubbed of any references to the rallies on the Twitter-like Weibo platform.
Videos, including those showing university students singing in protest and rallies in other cities have also vanished from WeChat, replaced by notices saying the content was reported for “non-compliant or sensitive content”.
The Weibo search for the hashtag #A4 – a reference to the blank pieces of paper held up at rallies in a symbolic protest against censorship – also appeared to have been manipulated, showing only a handful of posts from the past day.
‘Boiling point’
China’s strict control of information and continued travel curbs tied to the zero-Covid policy make verifying numbers of protesters across the vast country challenging.
But such widespread rallies are exceptionally rare, with the authorities harshly clamping down on any and all opposition to the central government.
Protests also occurred on Sunday in Wuhan, the central city where Covid-19 first emerged, while there were reports of demonstrations in Guangzhou, Chengdu and Hong Kong.
Spreading through social media, they have been fuelled by frustration at the central government’s zero-Covid policy, which sees the authorities impose snap lockdowns, lengthy quarantines and mass testing campaigns over just a handful of cases.
State-run People’s Daily published a commentary on Monday morning warning against “paralysis” and “battle-weariness” in the fight against Covid-19 – but stopped far short of calling for an end to hardline policy.
“People have now reached a boiling point because there has been no clear direction to the path to end the zero-Covid policy,” Mr Alfred Wu Muluan, a Chinese politics expert at the National University of Singapore, said. “The party has underestimated the people’s anger.”
China’s strict control of information and continued travel curbs tied to the zero-Covid policy make verifying numbers of protesters across the vast country challenging.
But such widespread rallies are exceptionally rare, with the authorities harshly clamping down on any and all opposition to the central government.
Protests also occurred on Sunday in Wuhan, the central city where Covid-19 first emerged, while there were reports of demonstrations in Guangzhou, Chengdu and Hong Kong.
Spreading through social media, they have been fuelled by frustration at the central government’s zero-Covid policy, which sees the authorities impose snap lockdowns, lengthy quarantines and mass testing campaigns over just a handful of cases.
State-run People’s Daily published a commentary on Monday morning warning against “paralysis” and “battle-weariness” in the fight against Covid-19 – but stopped far short of calling for an end to hardline policy.
“People have now reached a boiling point because there has been no clear direction to the path to end the zero-Covid policy,” Mr Alfred Wu Muluan, a Chinese politics expert at the National University of Singapore, said. “The party has underestimated the people’s anger.”
AFP
Videos Show CCP Forces Violently Crackdown on China Protests Against Xi
Videos posted to social media show Chinese Communist Party (CCP) forces violently crack down on protests against Chinese President Xi Jinping's COVID-19 lockdowns.
Massive protests erupted across China in recent days following an apartment fire in Urumqi, the capital of the northwestern Xinjiang region, that resulted in the deaths of 10 people. Protesters are demanding Xi's resignation in a rare rebuke against his leadership, just weeks after he secured a historic third term.
The apartment fire triggered the protests after video posted to Chinese social media showing rescue efforts led some people to believe Xi's restrictive COVID-19 rules slowed the evacuation, resulting in unnecessary deaths.
Chinese authorities, however, maintained people inside the high-rise were able to go downstairs and escape the building, but their defense has done little to quell discontent among citizens, who still believe the zero-COVID policy prevented residents from fleeing the blaze.
"Peaceful Anti Chinese Communist Party Government protests in Shanghai for the second day in a row," tweeted @_Inty_, a Twitter account that frequently tweets about Chinese current affairs. "The CCP began to violently crackdown the Chinese protesters."
NPR journalist Rob Schmitz tweeted a video showing police clearing protesters from the streets of Shanghai.
"It'll be interesting to see how the Chinese government responds in the coming days to crowds of Chinese calling for Xi Jinping and the CCP to step down," he tweeted.
Shows of political defiance are rare in China. Although authorities say they allow free expression, human rights experts have long raised concerns that the CCP stifles dissent among its citizens.
Human Rights Watch researcher Yaqiu Wang tweeted Saturday that the protests are "painful to watch, knowing what is going to happen to those who chanted and knowing the level of control the CCP has over the Chinese society."
Wang's tweet was in response to a video that showed protesters chant, "Down with the party! Down with Xi Jinping!" Other videos posted to Twitter depicted the protesters shouting "End the lockdown."
Xi Under Pressure
Before the protests began, Xi was already facing some political strife after thousands of employees resigned from Foxconn's flagship factory in central China where iPhones are produced.
Workers clashed with riot police, who were wearing hazmat suits, over living conditions inside a strict COVID-19 bubble. Videos showed hundreds of workers storm out of their dormitory building where they were met with a police response.
The protests are the most direct challenge yet to the zero-COVID policy. China has maintained that it has had few infections—and fewer deaths—in the past two years. However, the protests also come as cases are rising throughout the country. From October 26 to November 26, cases increased more than 490 percent, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
Xi also continues facing a strained relationship with other global super powers. He has become perhaps Russian President Vladimir Putin's most powerful global ally amid the otherwise-condemned invasion of Ukraine, and tensions with Taiwan have strained in recent months as island leaders rebuke Chinese leadership.
Newsweek reached out to the Chinese government for comment.
NEWSWEEK
ON 11/27/22
Videos posted to social media show Chinese Communist Party (CCP) forces violently crack down on protests against Chinese President Xi Jinping's COVID-19 lockdowns.
Massive protests erupted across China in recent days following an apartment fire in Urumqi, the capital of the northwestern Xinjiang region, that resulted in the deaths of 10 people. Protesters are demanding Xi's resignation in a rare rebuke against his leadership, just weeks after he secured a historic third term.
The apartment fire triggered the protests after video posted to Chinese social media showing rescue efforts led some people to believe Xi's restrictive COVID-19 rules slowed the evacuation, resulting in unnecessary deaths.
Chinese authorities, however, maintained people inside the high-rise were able to go downstairs and escape the building, but their defense has done little to quell discontent among citizens, who still believe the zero-COVID policy prevented residents from fleeing the blaze.
Above, protesters march along a street in Beijing on November 28. Videos posted to social media show Chinese Communist Party (CCP) authorities clash with protesters who are demanding President Xi Jinping's resignation and a change in the dynamic Zero-COVID policy following a deadly apartment fire.
NOEL CELIS/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
China implemented the policy to prevent widespread infection within its borders. Nearly three years after the first COVID-19 case was discovered in Wuhan, the CCP says its restrictions prevented a global economic downturn and millions of virus-fueled deaths.
Chinese protesters, however, are illustrating the growing discontent with the rules despite recent clashes with CCP police. Videos emerged on social media on Sunday showing authorities crack down on protesters, with scenes at times turning violent.
China implemented the policy to prevent widespread infection within its borders. Nearly three years after the first COVID-19 case was discovered in Wuhan, the CCP says its restrictions prevented a global economic downturn and millions of virus-fueled deaths.
Chinese protesters, however, are illustrating the growing discontent with the rules despite recent clashes with CCP police. Videos emerged on social media on Sunday showing authorities crack down on protesters, with scenes at times turning violent.
"Peaceful Anti Chinese Communist Party Government protests in Shanghai for the second day in a row," tweeted @_Inty_, a Twitter account that frequently tweets about Chinese current affairs. "The CCP began to violently crackdown the Chinese protesters."
NPR journalist Rob Schmitz tweeted a video showing police clearing protesters from the streets of Shanghai.
"It'll be interesting to see how the Chinese government responds in the coming days to crowds of Chinese calling for Xi Jinping and the CCP to step down," he tweeted.
Shows of political defiance are rare in China. Although authorities say they allow free expression, human rights experts have long raised concerns that the CCP stifles dissent among its citizens.
Human Rights Watch researcher Yaqiu Wang tweeted Saturday that the protests are "painful to watch, knowing what is going to happen to those who chanted and knowing the level of control the CCP has over the Chinese society."
Wang's tweet was in response to a video that showed protesters chant, "Down with the party! Down with Xi Jinping!" Other videos posted to Twitter depicted the protesters shouting "End the lockdown."
Xi Under Pressure
Before the protests began, Xi was already facing some political strife after thousands of employees resigned from Foxconn's flagship factory in central China where iPhones are produced.
Workers clashed with riot police, who were wearing hazmat suits, over living conditions inside a strict COVID-19 bubble. Videos showed hundreds of workers storm out of their dormitory building where they were met with a police response.
The protests are the most direct challenge yet to the zero-COVID policy. China has maintained that it has had few infections—and fewer deaths—in the past two years. However, the protests also come as cases are rising throughout the country. From October 26 to November 26, cases increased more than 490 percent, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
Xi also continues facing a strained relationship with other global super powers. He has become perhaps Russian President Vladimir Putin's most powerful global ally amid the otherwise-condemned invasion of Ukraine, and tensions with Taiwan have strained in recent months as island leaders rebuke Chinese leadership.
Newsweek reached out to the Chinese government for comment.
China: Two European journalists arrested while covering protests against Covid-19 curbs
One of them, a BBC journalist, was allegedly assaulted by the police in Shanghai.
Two European journalists, who were covering the protests in China against the strict coronavirus measures, were arrested on Sunday.
BBC journalist Ed Lawrence was arrested in Shanghai and was allegedly beaten up by the police, the British public broadcaster said in a statement.
“The BBC is extremely concerned about the treatment of our journalist Ed Lawrence, who was arrested and handcuffed while covering the protests in Shanghai,” the broadcaster said.
The second arrested journalist is Michael Peuker, the correspondent for Radio Télévision Suisse, the French-language branch of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation. Both journalists have been released.
The protests had broken out in several Chinese cities, including Shanghai, Beijing and Wuhan, after 10 persons were killed in a fire at a high-rise building in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang region, on November 24.
The protestors have claimed that the victims could not escape as the building was partially locked down. However, city officials denied the claims and instead blamed the residents for being “too weak” to rescue themselves.
The BBC said on Sunday that it was worrying that Lawrence was attacked while he was doing his job. The statement also said the Chinese authorities did not offer any explanation, just claimed that Lawrence was arrested “for his own good” in case he got infected with Covid-19 from the crowd.
“We do not consider this a credible explanation,” it added.
Lawrence, a senior journalist and camera operator for the BBC’s China Bureau, had been tweeting about the protest on Sunday afternoon. The journalist said that he had seen three protestors being arrested of which two had fought with the police.
Following his arrest and release, Lawrence also said that the police arrested one Chinese citizen who was trying to stop the officials from beating him up.
Meanwhile, Radio Télévision Suisse’s Peuker was arrested after a live broadcast. He knew that he was going to be arrested.
“The tension is at its height here,” he had said during his broadcast. “Proof of this is that I am now surrounded by three police officers, I will be taken on board after this duplex at the police station.”
The correspondent and his cameraman were taken into custody after Peuker went off air. The Swiss broadcaster said that the two were released after minutes of negotiation.
Zero-Covid policy
Several cities across China have imposed lockdowns and other restrictions to curb the spread of the infection, under zero-Covid policy.
Through the “zero-Covid” strategy, China aims to isolate every patient and eliminate the virus entirely to prevent overwhelming healthcare systems. Some of the norms under the policy were relaxed in November. However, the policy, which has been described as unsustainable by the World Health Organization, is seemingly being implemented again.
On Saturday, China had registered a record 39,791 Covid-19 cases, Reuters reported, citing the country’s National Health Commission. Out of these, 3,709 cases were symptomatic infections, whereas 36,082 were asymptomatic.
One person died due to the disease, taking the total number of fatalities to 5,233.
The country had reported its first Covid-related death in six months on November 20.
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