Dozens of people were beaten in China over the weekend after earlier peaceful protests. A lesson in how the Chinese authorities deal with riots.
Munich/Zhengzhou – It was one of the largest protest actions that China seen for years: Hundreds of people gathered last Sunday (July 10) in Zhengzhou, capital of central China’s Henan Province, to demonstrate against the freezing of their bank accounts. Dozens of videos shared on social media show people gathering outside a local branch of the People’s Bank of China. “Henan Bank, give us back our deposits!” reads signs held up by protesters, and the footage also shows banners denouncing “corruption and violence by the authorities in Henan.”
One of the videos shows and hears people shouting “Mafia!”, with dozens of police officers marching in the background. Around eleven o’clock on Sunday morning, there were suddenly tumultuous scenes. Men in civilian clothes – most of them wearing plain white T-shirts – beat the protesters, driving them from the bank’s entrance. The uniformed officials don’t intervene and let the thugs do as they please. Later, pictures of injured people appear on social networks, some with blood-smeared faces. “The police were only watching from afar,” the quote quoted Wall Street Journal an eyewitness. Other witnesses report that they were taken away by the police.
The protests had already started several weeks ago, and small groups of demonstrators kept coming to Zhengzhou to demand their money. As early as the end of May, there were scenes similar to those at the weekend, although far fewer people were involved at the time. In mid-June, the protests made headlines for the first time because the local authorities had tried a trick to keep the demonstrators away from the affected banks: people who, after arriving at Zhengzhou train station, wrote their mandatory Covid code on the When they had their smartphone scanned, they were amazed to see how it suddenly changed from green to red. Those affected were then taken to a remote quarantine hotel for several days. Earlier, some of them filed a complaint against the banks to seek help from the local authorities.
China: A ‘complicated’ case drives hundreds into the streets
The actions of the authorities, who had obviously misused the Covid app, not only caused horror on social media; State-controlled newspapers also took up the case and denounced the events. With the loud criticism of the state media, the government in Beijing, which is still pursuing a zero-Covid policy despite the spread of the Omicron variant, apparently wanted to prevent the Covid app, which is indispensable in everyday life, from falling into disrepute. In addition, responsibility was shifted to the local authorities, to whom the party newspaper People’s Daily in a comment that her behavior was “apparently contrary to common sense and the rule of law”.
The background to the protests in Zhengzhou is what the local police call a “complicated” case: four banks in Henan province had frozen cash withdrawals since mid-April after the media reported on a banking scandal. According to the police, a “criminal gang” had taken control of several financial institutions from 2011 and made illegal transfers with the help of manipulated managers and “fictitious loans”. Tens of thousands of people from all over China are said to have been recruited as customers of the banks. After the scandal, which is considered one of the biggest in decades, thousands of people suddenly lost access to their money. Overall, it should be about savings of the equivalent of six billion euros.
Sunday’s images caused a stir on China’s social media. After the censors initially tried to censor the posts, dozens of posts can currently be read. “I can’t believe this is actually happening in the country I live in,” wrote a Weibo user who goes by the name of Qingbaili. “If there is a problem, then it must be solved, rather than pushing it further and stifling the voices of those who speak up!”
Hundreds of thousands demonstrate against China’s authorities every year
Apparently the censors couldn’t keep up with the deletion. Or they let the people do as they please to give their anger an outlet. This happens especially when protests are directed against local authorities, not the central government in Beijing. It was the same in Zhengzhou: Pictures and videos from the city show some of the demonstrators waving the Chinese flag – a well-known sign that they are hoping for help from Beijing in their fight against local injustice. Portraits of Mao were also on display, and some demonstrators chanted directly to the head of state and party Xi Jinping. “All of these tactics are designed to show that they are not anti-central government,” writes China and economics analyst Ren Liqian Twitter.
Most people who think of protests in China have in mind the democracy movement of 1989, which was brutally crushed by the authorities; or the Demonstrations in Hong Kong, when up to two million people took to the streets in 2019 and early 2020 to demonstrate against a controversial extradition law. In the vast majority of cases, however, these are very local protests that hardly cause any major waves, but nevertheless drive hundreds of thousands onto the streets every year. China’s authorities speak of “mass incidents” and published statistics on the demonstrations every year until 2005. While 8,700 “incidents” were registered in 1993, by 2005 there were already ten times as many. An estimate from 2010 speaks of 180,000 demonstrations – that would be an average of more than 490 a day.
Jay Chih-Jou Chen from Academia Sinica in Taiwan has examined how the Chinese protest culture has changed over the past two decades on the basis of cases that have become public. Since the early 2000s, more and more people have taken to the streets: “China’s fast-growing economy has produced a powerful government and a nouveau riche upper class, which has led to a deep divide between the haves and have-nots,” writes Chen in one analysis. “At the same time, Chinese citizens have become more aware of their rights and interests.” When these are violated, “particularly through corruption or government abuse of power, complaints mount and protests mount.”
China: Corona lockdowns and mask requirements lead to public protests
The turning point came when Xi Jinping took office, first becoming party leader in 2012 and then president a year later. Provincial governments were supposed to ensure “social stability” and did so sometimes by reaching out to disaffected citizens, but often by crushing protests. For example, farmers who had lost their land and were not adequately compensated were targeted. Today, with the help of digital surveillance technology and artificial intelligence, authorities can even predict when and where protests are to be expected – and stop them in advance.
In the last two years, there has been another reason to take to the streets: the sometimes strict measures taken by the Chinese government to combat the corona pandemic. Especially during lockdown in Shanghai, as tens of millions of people were confined to their homes, the Chinese internet was awash with videos showing clashes between frustrated citizens and officials. Suzanne Scoggins has observed such attacks on Chinese police for years. During the pandemic, many people rebelled against measures such as mask requirements and lockdowns, says the political scientist at Clark University in the United States FR.de from IPPEN.MEDIA. “These confrontations tend to be less violent than other police conflicts, perhaps because only one or two citizens are involved and there is usually more than one police officer present.” Videos of such incidents ending up on social media, would almost always be censored immediately. “These protests are generally not tolerated,” says Scoggins. “Those involved are quickly overpowered and arrested.”
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Sometimes, however, the protests of Chinese citizens are successful. As in Zhengzhou city. The regional banking supervisory authority announced on Monday that some of the bank customers should initially get their frozen funds back from Friday. In addition, it was said, the members of a gang who had used the local banks for illegal financial transactions had been arrested. (sh)
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