Added to the usual security measures is the restriction of movement due to the Covid 0 policy so that nothing tarnishes this conclave, which begins this Sunday
Warnings not to travel, health codes that change color on the mobile, cancellation of flights, lack of tickets for trains and, if one is lucky enough to reach their destination, quarantine at home or, in the worst case , in an isolation camp. The restrictions on movement due to the strict policy of Covid 0 are added to the already usual security measures for the XX Congress of the Communist Party of China, which starts this Sunday in Beijing and in which its secretary general and president of the country, Xi Jinping, will remain in power.
So that nothing tarnishes such a great occasion, the Chinese capital has armored itself even more. But it has not prevented the protest of a protester who, circumventing the enormous surveillance, lit a fire on a bridge on a ring road on Thursday and managed to hang two banners. The first was against the Covid 0 policy and the second called to “overthrow the dictator Xi Jinping”.
In any democracy, it would be a minor incident and, at most, perhaps subject to a fine. In China, the protester is missing after his arrest by the police and censorship has deleted all references to the event on the internet, blocking searches for words like “bridge”, “protest” or even “brave”. According to Fang Shimin, a dissident in exile who spreads videos revealing the regime’s abuses, the protester is called Peng Lifa, goes by the pseudonym Peng Zaizhou, and is a physicist from the northern province of Heilongjiang who sent him the same protest slogans. to his Twitter account.
Beyond the low seriousness of the events, what is notable is that the protester had time to display the banners without being arrested first by the Police, who have redoubled their patrols on the eve of the political conclave and have placed guards on all the bridges after the incident. Although this is an isolated event, it is a small sample of the discomfort in a large part of Chinese society due to the Covid 0 policy. While the rest of the world returns to normal, the regime’s restrictions are seriously damaging not only the economy, but also the social life and mental health of many Chinese. With the XX Congress of the Communist Party, the controls have been tightened even more.
At the beginning of September, the authorities already recommended that the population avoid traveling until the end of October, once the conclave has ended on the 22nd. In addition, they once again recalled the current ban on leaving cities for public officials, state companies, teachers, university students and families with children in school.
Mr. Guo, a businessman from the central province of Henan, had a business appointment in Beijing and, after checking the flights online on his mobile, received a notification in his health code telling him that he could not travel. Similarly, in social networks there are many complaints from those who wanted to travel by train to other cities and have not found tickets for sale. It has been even worse for those who left Beijing during the National Day holidays (October 1-7) and, when trying to return, have seen their green health code change to yellow. Even if the mandatory PCR tests have been done every two or three days, that means they cannot return to Beijing or, if they do, they will be quarantined at home or in an isolation center for a week.
To the psychosis about the Covid that reigns in China, the only power that continues with its borders closed, is added the draconian security with which the regime shields its serious events. In this XX Congress of the Communist Party, Xi Jinping will break the rule of retiring after two five-year terms that his predecessors had followed after the death of Mao Zedong, precisely to avoid his personalist excesses. For his coronation as the most powerful Chinese president since the “Great Helmsman”, Xi does not want an uncontrolled outbreak of Covid to spoil his party and local and provincial governments have stepped up movement controls on him.
Close to Beijing, the Inner Mongolia region has confined entire counties and numerous neighborhoods of its major cities. “Act quickly and prevent the outbreak from spreading, especially to Beijing,” said the regional secretary of the Communist Party, Sun Shaocheng. To indicate the forcefulness of the measures to be taken, he even resorted to the Chinese saying of “killing chickens with knives to butcher cows”, according to the newspaper “South China Morning Post”.
Away from the Chinese capital, the restrictions are just as extreme. While the remote Muslim region of Xinjiang has been closed, thousands of tourists have been trapped in popular destinations such as Xishuangbanna or the tropical island of Hainan, which cancels almost all its flights to Beijing every day.
If someone arrives from an area without risk to the capital, they must take two PCR tests in three days and avoid going to crowded places, meeting friends and dining in restaurants for a week. All as long as the Covid does not spoil the coronation of Xi Jinping as the new emperor of China.
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