BEIJING – After a tumultuous weekend of protests across the country, things appeared to have calmed down somewhat on Monday, but many here are hoping the protests will continue. By Sunday they had spread to some 20 provinces in China. Demonstrations over the country’s “zero-COVID” policy and a deadly fire at a high-rise building in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang province, that killed 10 people appeared to have been the catalyst for many people in the communist nation to say enough. The building had been partially closed for almost two months.
Over the weekend, things turned violent in several cities, with protesters clashing with police. Videos posted online showed police attacking and taking away some protesters. People have increasingly expressed their anger online.
On Saturday and Sunday, people gathered in downtown Shanghai to light candles for the victims of the deadly fire. Around midnight, the crowd had grown to over a thousand people, chanting, “excuse me,” addressed to the central government, “Xi Jinping, resign,” and “Communist Party, resign.”
Such slogans directed directly at Xi and his central leadership committee are unprecedented. Even during the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, protesters demanded democratic reform, not regime change.
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After an hour-long standoff between police and protesters, police forces began clearing streets around 2 a.m. in Shanghai. Although it started out peacefully, a witness told Fox News Digital that after a while, police began pulling people out of the crowd, dragging them into police vehicles and driving them away. Requests for volunteer lawyers to help those detained the night before appeared on social media on Sunday.
In Beijing, where the government is fighting one of the most serious outbreaks since the start of the pandemic, people have demanded the relaxation of pandemic control measures.
A man is arrested as people gather on a street in Shanghai on November 27, 2022, where protests against China’s “zero COVID” policy were held the night before following a deadly fire in Urumqi, the capital. from the Xinjiang region.
(Photo by HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP via Getty Images)
Shortly after the fire, students across the country held wakes for all the victims of the deadly fire and all others who have fallen victim to China’s “zero-COVID” policy. At most universities, students who have also been unable to leave campus for months began putting up banners and painting graffiti reading “rest in peace people of Urumqi” and “we demand freedom.”
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On Sunday, videos and images of protests from at least 25 universities surfaced online. University protests are particularly sensitive for communist China given the country’s history with student-led demonstrations in the past. On Sunday morning, students from Beijing Tsinghua University, one of China’s most prestigious universities, staged a protest that was quickly ended by police.
Residents film the scene as they mourn for the victims of a recent deadly fire at a residential building in the city of Urumqi at a traffic signal from Middle Wulumuqi Road or Middle Urumqi Road and call for freedom of the press in Shanghai on Saturday, November 26, 2022 Protests against China’s restrictive measures against COVID-19 appeared to erupt in several cities late Saturday, in public defiance fueled by anger over a deadly fire in the western region of Xinjiang.
(Chinatopix Via AP)
Craig Singleton, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense Democracies and an expert on China, told Fox News Digital that “the tenuous trust that exists between the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese people is starting to crumble, and it’s not all clear that Xi has new ideas to turn the tide. That said, it seems unlikely that these latest demonstrations will seriously challenge the party’s grip on power as long as they remain isolated and sporadic. Xi is more likely seeking to appear receptive to public opinion. growing discontent as he distanced himself politically from recent lockdown orders, in essence shifting the blame onto local and provincial officials.”
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Although photos and videos of the protests in Xinjiang were soon censored, people have found ways around the censorship. Popular songs online include video clips of “Do You Hear the People Sing” from “Les Misérables.” The song was removed from Chinese streaming services years ago when protesters in Hong Kong adopted it as one of their protest anthems.
Chinese police officers block access to a site where protesters had gathered in Shanghai, Sunday, November 27, 2022. Protests against China’s strict “COVID-zero” policies resurfaced in Shanghai and Beijing on Sunday afternoon, continuing a round of demonstrations that have swept across the country since a deadly apartment fire in the northwestern city of Urumqi raised questions about such tough anti-virus measures.
(AP Photo)
Captioned clips of live performances of the song “Get Bob Marley & The Wailers’ Up Stand Up” and Patti Smith’s “People have the Power” have been widely shared. In another attempt to circumvent social media, people have posted images of artwork referencing the fire that killed to 10 people in Urumquí.
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Another way that people have voiced their criticism without risking censorship has been by posting videos of former leader Deng Xiaoping or even Xi out of context. A popular video showed the late Deng Xiaoping defending a clip that said people should put economics before ideology.
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Another video showed Xi warning the world not to provoke the Chinese people because, in his words, “they are organized” and “not easy to handle when provoked.”
