The protests erupted after a fire in the city of Urumqi on Thursday killed at least 10 amid a months-long blockade. Protesters have been arrested in Shanghai after calling for President Xi Jinping to step down. A Communist Party leader in Xinjiang called for tighter security measures to crack down on the protests.
Demonstrators angered by strict COVID-19 measures called for China’s powerful leader to step down, a rare rebuke as authorities in at least eight cities struggled to quell protests on Sunday that represent a rare direct challenge to the ruling Communist Party. The wave of civil disobedience is unprecedented in mainland China since President Xi Jinping took power a decade ago, as frustration grows over his zero-covid-19 policy nearly three years into the pandemic. The COVID-19 measures are also taking a heavy toll on the world’s second-largest economy. The demonstrations – which began on Friday and have spread to cities including the capital, Beijing and dozens of university campuses – are the most widespread opposition to the ruling party in decades. Police using pepper spray dispersed protesters in Shanghai calling for Xi’s resignation and an end to one-party rule, but hours later people gathered again in the same spot. Police broke up the demonstration again, and a reporter saw protesters who had been arrested being taken away on a bus. In a video of the protest in Shanghai verified by the Associated Press, chants against Xi, the most powerful leader since at least the 1980s, and the Chinese Communist Party could be heard loud and clear: “Xi Jinping! Back down! CCP!” People also held white sheets of paper as an expression of protest. Protesters and police come to a demonstration in Shanghai on Sunday night. (Casey Hall/Reuters) A large crowd also gathered in the southwestern metropolis of Chengdu, according to videos on social media, where they also held white sheets of paper and chanted: “We don’t want life-long rulers. We don’t want emperors,” a reference to Xi, who has abolished limits of the presidential term. On the campus of Beijing’s Tsinghua University, a large crowd gathered, according to images and videos posted on social media. Some people also held blank sheets of paper. In the central city of Wuhan, where the pandemic began three years ago, videos on social media showed hundreds of residents taking to the streets, breaking down metal barriers, overturning COVID-19 testing tents and demanding an end to lockdowns. Protesters standing on a street in Shanghai hold white sheets of paper during a demonstration against pandemic restrictions on Sunday. (Hector Retamal/AFP/Getty Images) Other cities that have seen public dissent include Lanzhou in the northwest, where residents on Saturday toppled tents of COVID-19 staff and smashed testing chambers, social media posts showed. Protesters said they were placed on lockdown even though no one had tested positive.
Anger at the deadly fire
The current protests erupted after a fire broke out on Thursday, killing at least 10 people in an apartment building in the northwestern city of Urumqi, where some have been confined to their homes for four months. That prompted a flurry of angry questions online about whether firefighters or people trying to escape were prevented by locked doors or other restrictions. Urumqi officials held a surprise press conference on Saturday to deny that pandemic measures had hampered escape and rescue efforts. A protester holds a candle at a vigil in Beijing on Sunday, while others hold white sheets of paper as a symbol of protest. The vigil was held to commemorate the victims of Thursday night’s fire in Urumqi. (Thomas Peter/Reuters) Three years after the emergence of COVID-19, China is the only major country still trying to stop the transmission of COVID-19. Its “zero COVID” strategy has suspended access to neighborhoods for weeks at a time. Some cities are testing millions of residents for viruses every day. This has kept China’s infection numbers lower than those of the United States and other major countries, but public acceptance has waned. People quarantined at home in some areas say they lack food and medicine. The ruling party faced public fury after the deaths of two children whose parents said anti-virus controls hindered efforts to get medical help. China defends its COVID-19 policies as lifesaving and necessary to prevent the collapse of the healthcare system. Officials have vowed to press on with it despite mounting public pressure and a rising tax on the world’s second-largest economy. A resident asks a worker in a protective suit to give him his groceries in a locked-down Beijing neighborhood on Sunday. New COVID-19 lockdowns in China’s capital mean residents can’t leave their apartment complexes and many businesses are closed to patrons. (Andy Wong/The Associated Press)
Protest is extremely rare
Widespread public protests are extremely rare in China, where the margin for dissent has been nearly eliminated under Xi, forcing citizens mostly to take to social media, where they play cat-and-mouse with censors. Frustration is boiling over a little more than a month after Xi secured a third term at the helm of China’s Communist Party. “This is going to put serious pressure on the party to respond. There’s a good chance that a response will be repression and they will arrest and prosecute some protesters,” said Dan Mattingly, an assistant professor of political science at Yale University. However, he said, the unrest was a far cry from that seen in 1989, when protests culminated in a bloody crackdown on Tiananmen Square. He added that as long as Xi had China’s elite and the military on his side, he would not face any significant danger to his stay in power. A woman underwent a swab from her neck in a COVID-19 test in Beijing on Sunday. Residents in some areas of Beijing are required to undergo daily tests in an effort to limit the spread of the virus. (Andy Wong/The Associated Press) This weekend, Xinjiang Communist Party Secretary Ma Xingrui called on the region to step up security maintenance and curb “illegal violent rejection of COVID-19 prevention measures.” Xinjiang officials also said public transport would gradually resume from Monday in Urumqi.
