The wave of protests began in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, after a deadly fire at an apartment building. According to residents, the firefighting efforts were hampered by covid restrictions, and the victims could not escape through closed doors. Local authorities deny this, and blame the slow firefighting efforts on illegally parked cars and a ‘weak self-reliance’ of the residents. Outrage over this led to demonstrations in at least two places in Urumqi.
The protest spread to at least ten cities in China on Saturday, targeting the communist regime itself, which is highly risky and exceptional in China. In Shanghai, hundreds of youths held a vigil on Urumqi Street, chanting for the resignation of Xi Jinping and the Communist Party of China. Slogans were also heard from an earlier one-man action on a bridge in Beijing: ‘We don’t want PCR tests, we want freedom’.
Kiosks knocked over
The same slogans were left in graffiti on several Chinese university campuses. Students from Nanjing Communications University held a vigil for the victims in Urumqi, with some holding up a blank white sheet as a sign of silent defiance. In Lanzhou, protesters toppled the kiosks where they normally have to get their PCR tests. In other cities, such as Beijing, residents mainly resisted local lockdowns in their own neighborhood.
The protests remained small-scale, with a few dozen or hundreds of participants, but the special thing is that they took place in several places at the same time. Mass dissatisfaction was also expressed on social media. In the night from Friday to Saturday, so many critical messages and videos were shared that the censorship was temporarily overwhelmed. The criticism not only focused on the zero-covid policy, but also on the censorship itself, and thus took on a broader political character.
412 million Chinese in lockdown
The zero-covid policy was experienced as positive by many Chinese for a year and a half: the Chinese government managed to keep the virus under control with limited economic damage. But since the emergence of the omikron variant, the policy has led to endless lockdowns and severe economic and social damage. While the rest of the world seems to have left covid behind, according to Japanese investment bank Nomura, 412 million Chinese are in partial or complete lockdown.
Frustration among the Chinese population was compounded by the recent flip-flop policy, which saw relaxations reversed as quickly as they were announced. The chaos is the result of conflicting orders from the central government, which on the one hand insists on zero covid, but on the other hand demands that the economy is not damaged. This places local authorities, which must implement the policy and are judged on their contamination figures, for an impossible task.
On Sunday, 39,506 new infections were reported across China, a new record and almost certainly under-reported. It increasingly seems that the Chinese government has lost control of the virus, while it has insufficiently prepared for the large-scale spread of the virus. The emphasis is still on maintaining the zero-covid policy, rather than increasing hospital capacity or vaccination coverage.
While the central government on Sunday reaffirmed its “unwavering” adherence to the zero-covid policy, local governments made small concessions to protesters. In at least 10 neighborhoods in Beijing, a local curfew was ended or relaxed after opposition from residents. In Urumqi, the city-wide lockdown was lifted, but at the same time 273 neighborhoods were declared high-risk areas, keeping these neighborhoods closed. The lack of transparency and the use of rhetorical tricks make it difficult to get an overview of the situation.
A resident of Urumqi, who wishes to remain anonymous for security reasons, confirmed on Saturday evening that the city has reopened on a “limited basis.” “We are allowed to leave our neighborhood, and some shops have reopened. But we are not allowed to drive a car, public transport is not working, and people cannot go to work. And not all neighborhoods have reopened.’
Repression
During the protests, the police acted with restraint, but behind the scenes repression seems to have begun. Videos posted on social media show residents being arrested in Urumqi for participating in the protests or sharing videos of the fire or protests on WeChat. They are accused of ‘spreading rumours’ or ‘disrupting order’. Local authorities called on residents in a WeChat message to report those involved, for a reward of 140 euros.
At Communication University in Nanjing, the deputy director threatened that the students would ‘pay a price for their actions’, although this was later withdrawn by the management. On social media, citizens called on companies to hire students who would not be awarded a degree because of their participation in these protests. Participating in protests is risky in China given the repression and ubiquitous cameras and surveillance systems.
Many messages about the protests are spread through Chinese and foreign social media. Travel restrictions and lockdowns and the closed political climate make it difficult to independently verify these reports. Video footage from Urumqi, Shanghai and Nanjing clearly identifies the buildings in the videos, and the protests there were confirmed by local residents to foreign media.