What the protests in China mean for Xi Jinping and the Communist Party
Anyone who thinks that there are never protests in China is wrong. But this time there is something different. This time the protests are widespread in several cities and dissatisfaction does not unload a company as in the case of Foxconn or a local official. No, this time the dissatisfaction reaches as far as the central government and President Xi Jinping. Even if the reality seems that the component of the protests calling for a “regime change” is not so widespread.
Singing the anthem of the People’s Republic of China or the communist International’s anthem, as many protesters have done in different cities, signals that the protesters want to show their loyalty to the country and the Party. But the Party itself is being asked to change. To move on, at least in terms of the zero Covid strategy. The fire in the Urumqi apartment, capital of the autonomous region of Xinjiang, it was the latest and most dramatic episode in a series of events that have exasperated many Chinese citizens.
According to some witnesses, people would have been blocked inside the building also due to the anti-Covid restrictions in force at that time in Urumqi. And this drama was the trigger for a series of vigils in memory of the victims organized in different cities. Vigils which in many cases then turned into real protests. In Shanghai and beyond, there have been those who have asked for Xi himself to resign. The request for “freedom” instead of masks is more widespread.
As has not happened for decades, at least with this scale and dissatisfaction with the central government, the Chinese have filled the streets of several cities. Peacefully, especially in Beijing, where many showed up with blank sheets of A4 paper, a sign of dissent, however, without slogans that could be punishable by arrest or, as happened in Hong Kong in recent years, under the national security law.
Many young people and even several women filled the demonstrations, sometimes with a black tape over their mouth as shown by some videos released on social networks. THEArrests were triggered in many cities, after an initial phase of waiting by the police. And on Monday, many testimonies report people stopped on the street with cell phones being searched and photos of the protests being deleted.
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