Protests Break Out In China Over Covid Restrictions

[Webster]

Sean Ketchem (@[email protected])

Attached: 1 image · Content warning: Protests break out across China

mstdn.party

Protests erupt across China in unprecedented challenge to Xi Jinping's zero-Covid policy | CNN

Protests are erupting across China, including at universities and in Shanghai where hundreds chanted "Step down, Xi Jinping! Step down, Communist Party!" in an unprecedented show of defiance against the country's stringent and increasingly costly zero-Covid policy.

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CNN — Protests are erupting across China, including at universities and in Shanghai where hundreds chanted “Step down, Xi Jinping! Step down, Communist Party!” in an unprecedented show of defiance against the country’s stringent and increasingly costly zero-Covid policy.

A deadly fire at an apartment block in the country’s far western region of Xinjiang that killed 10 people and injured nine on Thursday appears to have fueled the anger, as video emerged that seemed to suggest lockdown measures delayed firefighters from reaching the victims.

Protests broke out in cities and at universities across China on Saturday and early Sunday morning, according to social media videos and witness accounts.

 

[Nebulous]

Don't blame them for protesting, this covid shit is getting old!

 

[WHO IS SERAFIN]

Unless tens of millions get out there, the government will just make a few hundred thousand people disappear.

 

[Webster]

Unless tens of millions get out there, the government will just make a few hundred thousand people disappear.

How do we know they haven't?
Even with the Great Firewall surrounding China, information still gets in and out of China.

 

[WHO IS SERAFIN]

How do we know they haven't?
Even with the Great Firewall surrounding China, information still gets in and out of China.

Made people disappear? I’m sure they have.

 

[Nebulous]

Unless tens of millions get out there, the government will just make a few hundred thousand people disappear.

because a few hundred thousand is just a blip on the radar over there?

 

[Webster]

Made people disappear? I’m sure they have.

And yet they're still protesting....

 

[Webster]

(BBC News) How did the protests begin?
Tensions have been simmering in China for some time now, with swathes of the country fed up of President Xi Jinping's zero-Covid approach to handling outbreaks of coronavirus. But these fresh protests were sparked by something more specific - the deaths of 10 people, killed when a block of flats in the city of Urumqi, capital of the western Xinjiang region, caught fire on Thursday.

The incident enraged people online, with many commenting on the fact Urumqi had been under strict Covid restrictions since early August. One resident told the BBC that people living in the compound had largely been prevented from leaving their homes.

Authorities have now promised to phase out Covid restrictions, but deny that they stopped people escaping the fire.

 

[Webster]

Stephen McDonell, China correspondent, Beijing: Acts of dissent are not unusual in China.

Over the years, sudden, local explosions of defiance have been triggered by a range of issues - from toxic pollution to illegal land grabs, or the mistreatment of a community member at the hands of the police. But this time it's different.

There is one subject at the forefront of Chinese people's minds, and many are increasingly fed up with it - prompting widespread pushback against the government's zero-Covid restrictions. This has come in the form of residents smashing down barriers designed to enforce social distancing, and now large street protests in cities and university campuses across the country.

In a way, it is hard to explain just how shocking it is to hear a crowd in Shanghai calling for China's leader Xi Jinping to resign. It is extremely dangerous here to publicly criticise the Communist Party's general secretary. You risk being put in prison.

---

Tessa Wong, BBC News, Singapore: The latest protests were sparked by the deaths of 10 people, killed when a block of flats in the north-western city of Urumqi caught fire on Thursday.

The Urumqi fire was a nightmare scenario for many Chinese who have come under widespread restrictions in recent months - locked in one's apartment with no way to escape, according to some accounts. Authorities have disputed this, but it has not stopped public outrage and anxiety from spreading.

It has become the latest tipping point in mounting frustration. Millions are weary of three years of movement restrictions and daily Covid tests. The anger has spread to all corners of China, from major cities to far-flung regions like Xinjiang and Tibet, and galvanised every part of society including young university students, factory workers, and ordinary citizens.

As this anger grows, protests against Covid measures have become an increasingly common sight. But even this weekend's demonstrations are unusual in this new normal, both in their numbers and directness of their criticism of the government and President Xi Jinping.

 

[Webster]

(BBC News) BBC extremely concerned about arrest of BBC journalist in China
Several hours ago, a BBC journalist covering the protest in Shanghai was arrested and detained by Chinese authorities.

The BBC has said it is extremely concerned about his treatment.

Ed Lawrence was beaten and kicked during his arrest, the BBC said. He was then handcuffed and held for several hours before being released. A spokesperson said the attack on Lawrence while carrying out his duties as an accredited journalist was very worrying.

They said the Chinese authorities had given no credible explanation or apology for his detention.

 

[Webster]

(BBC News) I've never seen protests of this scale in Shanghai - resident
More from Shanghai now, where thousands protested against strict Covid measures over the weekend - with some even calling on President Xi Jinping to step down.

One observer of the protest there is Frank Tsai, who organises public lectures in China. He told the BBC he was surprised at how large the protest had become. "I haven't seen any protests of this scale in Shanghai in the entire 15 years that I have lived here," he said.

Over the past two or three decades, he said, there have been tens of thousands of small-scale protests about things including labour rights and land grabs. But, he says, "very, very few" have targeted the central government, and "basically nothing" has targeted the regime itself before.

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Covid-related dissent has reached 'tipping point'
Yanzhong Huang, a Chinese health policy expert based at US think tank, The Council on Foreign Relations, says the protests in China represent a "tipping point" for Covid-related dissent in the country.

Speaking to the BBC, Huang says that though there is no indication the Chinese government is ready to give up its zero-Covid strategy, there have already been some loosening of Covid restrictions in Urumqi, where protests took place on Friday. But Huang says that even if local governments decide to change course on the policy in response to protests elsewhere, it will still have to address the rapid surge in Covid cases nationwide.

 

[Webster]

(BBC News) No obvious endpoint for restrictions - expert
The country's top leadership may not have realised quite how unhappy people are about the ongoing Covid restrictions because of how severely media and freedom of speech has been restricted, Rana Mitter, the director of the China Centre at the UK's Oxford University has suggested.

In an interview with the BBC, he said there "may be an argument that either people in [these] levels haven't realised quite how unhappy people are or can't work out what is the best way to actually get out of them, in terms of having to open up or use a different vaccine strategy". He added that another issue China faces is that there is no "obvious endpoint" at which restrictions would be lifted and life would go back to normal - with one reason being its failure to import or approve an mRNA vaccine - as has been used by most Western countries. -- They have vaccines that are okay but don't really work very well, all of that means that the exit door for the Covid policy is just not clearly defined."

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University students hold up 'free man' posters
A protest poster showing a Friedmann equation was purportedly held up by students in Beijing's prestigious Tsinghua University - a play on the word "Friedmann", which sounds similar to "free 的 man" - quite literally translated to "a man who is free".

Friedmann is a Russian physicist and mathematician best-known for his work on the theory of relativity and for introducing the possibility of an expanding universe - a concept that may not have been lost on the protesting students.

The BBC could not trace the origins of this photo, but it has been shared widely on social media - even by high profile Hong Kong protest leader and ex-lawmaker Nathan Law, who has since fled the city for the UK.

 

[Webster]

(BBC News) How Xi reacts is key - ex-Australian PM
Kevin Rudd, the former prime minister of Australia, says protests taking place across China are unusual and "potentially significant".

Speaking to the BBC's Today programme Rudd said that since 1989, when Beijing's Tiananmen Square became the focus for large-scale protests which were crushed by China's Communist rulers, protests have been rare.

There have been occasional protests over labour rights and land disputes, along with sporadic demonstrations over human rights that have been suppressed, he says. "But this seems to be general, seems to be across multiple cities at once, it doesn’t seem to be centrally coordinated - it seems to be spontaneous," he says.

Rudd also points out that the current protests appear to be about more than just Covid measures. "There is an argument that this is now a metaphor for a much border set of, shall we say, distrust on the parts of the Chinese people about different aspects about what Xi Jinping’s regime is doing. The key question is what does the regime do next."

 

[Webster]

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-asia-63776816

...there's the BBC's live-blog in case anyone wants to follow....

 

[WHO IS SERAFIN]

And yet they're still protesting....

It’s gutsy and desperation. My wife’s father in Ecuador will never be the same after the strict lockdowns they had there with armed military filling the streets at the time. These people are at a point of either let me go out or I’d rather die.

 

[Webster]

It’s gutsy and desperation.

Yeah and people in Montgomery, Alabama probably said likewise at the beginning of the bus boycotts and the broader civil rights movements....

 

[Webster]

(BBC News) 'I’m not foreign forces, I’m a Chinese citizen'
Of all the lines we’ve heard from the protesters, one doesn't articulate any political demand - but does carry a crucial message. “I’m not foreign forces, I’m a Chinese citizen” - this sentence has appeared on some pictures circulating online, said to be taken from university campuses and graffiti in various cities.

The Chinese government often alleges that "foreign forces" are behind expressions of dissent. It has blamed “collusion with foreign forces” for protests in Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Tibet and other regions in the past.

With the weekend’s protests gaining attention across the country and abroad, some internet users are alleging foreign involvement and others are pushing back. "Is there foreign force? Maybe. But do you think foreign forces can organize activities across the country at such a large scale overnight, and give people money for holding white papers? I would say you underestimated our surveillance network," a Weibo post liked 28,000 times reads.

"Foreign forces won't be able to enter the country because their health code would be red," another post liked more than 4,000 times said.

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China says forces with ulterior motives linking Xinjiang fire to Covid measures
China has blamed "forces with ulterior motives" for linking a deadly fire in the Xinjiang region to strict Covid measures.

Protesters have blamed lockdown rules for hampering rescue efforts in the city of Urumqi, but authorities deny this, insisting residents in the block were not locked in their homes or the building and could get out.

The tragedy prompted an outpouring of anger on social media and triggered protests in Urumqi and then in other parts of China. In response to a question at a news briefing about the disaster, foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said: "On social media there are forces with ulterior motives that relate this fire with the local response to Covid-19."

 

[WHO IS SERAFIN]

Yeah and people in Montgomery, Alabama probably said likewise at the beginning of the bus boycotts and the broader civil rights movements....

Maybe but not quite the same thing. These people know when they are caught on camera they may never be seen again

 

[Webster]

These people know when they are caught on camera they may never be seen again

And yet they're still out there; imagine that?

 

[Webster]

(BBC News) Vigils held in Hong Kong to mourn fire victims
Vigils have been held in Hong Kong to commemorate the victims of the Urumqi fire and to show solidarity with anti-lockdown protests taking places across China.

Ten people died in the Chinese city of Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang region, when a fire broke out in a high-rise building on Thursday night. Protesters have attributed the death toll in part to the Chinese government's zero-Covid policy, which has seen many in Xinjiang and elsewhere confined to their homes for prolonged periods - though the government rejects the claim.

Monday evening saw dozens gather in Hong Kong's central business district and on the campus of the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Photos showed people holding flowers and placing candles to spell out the date on which the fire took place. Others could be seen holding up blank pieces of paper, which have become symbols of dissent in Hong Kong since the authorities banned slogans and phrases associated with protest movements.

Hong Kong has seen intermittent demonstrations in recent years after laws were introduced reducing its autonomy from the government in Beijing and making it easier to prosecute protesters.