Anger over China’s Covid curbs mounts
Crowds of demonstrators in Shanghai shouted and held up blank sheets of papers early yesterday evening, as protests flared in China against heavy Covid-19 curbs following a deadly fire in the country's far west sparked widespread anger.
The wave of civil disobedience, which has included protests in cities including Beijing and Urumqi, where the fire occurred, is unprecedented in mainland China since Xi Jinping assumed power a decade ago.
In Shanghai, China's most populous city, residents had gathered on Saturday night at Wulumuqi Road - which is named after Urumqi - for a candlelight vigil that turned into a protest in the early hours of yesterday.
As a large group of police looked on, the crowd held up blank sheets of paper as a protest symbol against censorship. Later on, they shouted, "lift lockdown for Urumqi, lift lockdown for Xinjiang, lift lockdown for all of China!", according to a video circulated on social media.
Later, a large group chanted "Down with the Chinese Communist Party, down with Xi Jinping", according to witnesses and videos, in a rare public protest against the country's leadership.
Reuters could not independently verify the footage.
Later yesterday, police kept a heavy presence on Wulumuqi Road and cordoned off surrounding streets, making an arrest that triggered protests from onlookers, according to unverified videos seen by Reuters.
By evening, hundreds of people had gathered again near one of the cordons, some holding blank sheets of paper.
At Beijing's prestigious Tsinghua University, dozens of people held a peaceful protest against Covid restrictions during which they sang the national anthem, according to images and videos posted on social media.
One student who saw the Tsinghua protest described to Reuters feeling taken aback by the protest at one China's most elite universities, and Xi's alma mater.
"People there were very passionate, the sight of it was impressive," the student said, declining to be named given the sensitivity of the matter.
China has stuck with Xi's signature zero-Covid policy even as much of the world has lifted most restrictions. While low by global standards, China's cases have hit record highs for days, with nearly 40,000 new infections on Saturday.
China defends the policy as life-saving and necessary to prevent overwhelming the healthcare system. Officials have vowed to continue with it despite the growing public pushback and its mounting economic toll.
China's economy suffered a broad slowdown in October as factory output grew more slowly than expected and retail sales fell for the first time in five months, underscoring faltering demand at home and abroad.
Adding to a raft of weak data in recent days, China reported yesterday that industrial firms saw overall profits fall further in the January-October period, with 22 of China's 41 major industrial sectors showing a decline.
The world's second-largest economy is also facing other headwinds including a global recession risks and a property downturn.
Widespread public protest is extremely rare in China, where room for dissent has been all but eliminated under Xi, forcing citizens mostly to vent on social media, where they play cat-and-mouse with censors.
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