Rare large demonstrations have increased throughout China in opposition to the nation’s strict zero-COVID pandemic regulations, with protesters taking to the streets in many locations to voice their displeasure. While protests are not entirely unknown in China, the ones that do take place tend to be issue or location-specific.
Additionally, these are often stopped in their tracks before they can spread by a strong surveillance system and prompt countermeasures from state forces. Even though it’s impossible to confirm with absolute certainty how many of China’s 1.4 billion citizens have taken part, this time is already different.
Although President Xi Jinping’s zero-COVID policy has prevented infections in China, the lengthy isolation and restricted movement it required have come under increasing public criticism and have even been linked to a number of recent high-profile catastrophes. The deaths in the Urumqi fire aren’t attributed to COVID policies, according to officials. China is becoming increasingly frustrated with its own draconian and disruptive epidemic measures as it observes the rest of the world opening up. People who disobey the rules or criticise them have been beaten or taken into custody. The capital Beijing and Shanghai’s financial centre are just two examples of the major cities where protests against zero-COVID are still being held.
The complaints over testing and quarantine regulations that reached a boiling point over the weekend have also changed into blatant criticism of Xi and the ruling Chinese Communist Party. The new emblem of resistance—blank white sheets of paper—was carried by protestors in Beijing on Sunday as they screamed, “We don’t want a leader, we want votes.” Protesters in Shanghai have demanded that Xi and the CCP resign and offer their condolences. In China, holding up a blank sheet of paper has come to represent protest as citizens take to the streets to voice their opposition to the government’s continuous zero COVID policies. During the Liangma River demonstrations, a 26-year-old man called Johnny told Reuters that “the white paper reflects everything we want to say but cannot speak.” On Weibo, it appears that information about demonstrators holding up white paper sheets has been heavily repressed.
Several protest-related hashtags have been deleted. Chinese social media networks also appeared to have blocked footage of small-scale protests. On October 26, 2022, irate Lhasa citizens protested the brutal COVID-19 lockdown that Chinese officials had placed them under for more than two months, according to information obtained by Radio Free Asia. Since the 2008 Tibetan Uprising, a string of protests against how the Chinese government treated the ethnic minority population, they were the first significant demonstrations in the city. Many people were killed when that revolt was put down by Chinese police and military troops. Numerous demonstrators can be seen in the streets in videos that RFA has obtained. In a video taken during the day, most of the individuals are standing or moving around, and nearby are officials wearing white protection suits. Two videos taken at night show crowds and vehicles blocking a wide thoroughfare as the crowd pushes forward while shouting.
Early in August, as COVID rates in China as a whole and in Lhasa continued to rise, the city was placed under lockdown. Residents of Lhasa have complained on social media that there was little time to prepare before the lockdown order was issued, left some people hungry and made it impossible for those with the illness to receive effective treatment. Late last month, RFA reported that a source within Tibet had corroborated online claims that Tibetans in Lhasa were jumping off buildings. The region is still under the severe control of China, which imposes restrictions on Tibetans’ political activity and peaceful expression of their cultural and religious identities while also subjecting them to persecution, torture, incarceration, and extrajudicial executions. The Chinese government imposes rigorous zero-COVID lockdowns and other restrictions on many people, including Tibetans as seen by the protests happening now.
For the first time in decades, thousands of individuals in China have defied the government to demonstrate at universities and on the streets of major cities, calling for an end to rigorous censorship, the Communist Party’s increasing control over all parts of life, as well as the ongoing Covid tests and lockdowns. “Want freedom” has spread across the nation as a catchphrase for a groundswell of protests led primarily by the younger generation, some of whom are too young to have participated in earlier open acts of dissent against the government. In the previous three decades, mainland China, according to analysts, had not experienced anything comparable. Wu Qiang, a researcher based in Beijing and former lecturer at Tsinghua University who participated in the pro-democracy movement 33 years ago, called the current protests “the biggest act of resistance in China since the Tiananmen demonstrations in 1989.” The demands this time around, he continued, are more specific than they were in 1989, when protests were primarily focused on the pursuit of abstract values. The scholar asserted, “I believe Xi would prepare strong measures to counterattack in accordance with the logic of the Chinese Communist Party system and Xi Jinping’s personal behaviour pattern.
Then, in order to further tighten his overall control over society, he might use a number of strategies. However, the Chinese government has remained silent regarding the widespread protests so far, instead highlighting the significance of maintaining zero-COVID efforts through state media. It’s unlikely that the protesters would be able to persuade the Chinese government to abandon its zeroCOVID policy very soon.
