Major Chinese cities were rocked on November 26 and 27 by protests against Covid zero strategy health restrictions. Since then, police reinforcements contain and prevent any new mobilizations.
China faced demonstrations on an unprecedented scale on November 26 and 27, 2022. Never before have so many Chinese citizens mobilized since the events in Tian’anmen Square in 1989, yet the number of demonstrators was nothing comparable. However, there were several hundred of them pounding the pavement in the streets of dozens of major Chinese cities, including Beijing and Shanghai. A mobilization to denounce the health restrictions deemed too liberticidal of the zero Covid strategy, the punctual and ultra localized confinements in mind. Since 2020 and the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, China has been subject to the decisions of Xi Jinping’s government and quarantines decreed at the slightest suspicion of an epidemic outbreak. A deadly fire that broke out in a confined building in Urumqi on Thursday, November 24, was the last straw and the trigger for the protests.
The mobilizations lasted a whole weekend before being controlled and then prevented by the Chinese authorities. Since the evening of Sunday November 27, the police have benefited from reinforcements to counter any attempt at new popular mobilization. The efforts of the Chinese Communist Party, which maintains that it is necessary to “resolutely suppress, in accordance with the law, criminal actions aimed at breaking social order and resolutely safeguarding social stability” have borne fruit. Not an ounce of revolt was observed in Beijing or Shanghai and only a few peaceful demonstrations bringing together dozens of people took place in places such as Hong Kong, in support of the Chinese demonstrators. But the protest movement remained a minority in the Asian giant and the demands were barely heard.
The Chinese protests demanded the end of the zero Covid strategy and overly severe restrictions still in force three years after the start of the epidemic. In the crowds, some individuals chanted slogans calling for the resignation of Chinese President Xi Jinping, but this was not the real motivation of the majority. Even so, the government did not agree to any demands, for both health and political reasons. He has merely pronounced or guaranteed the easing of restrictions, hoping to quell the anger and quench the embers of the movement from within.
Some demonstrations located in China
In the Chinese streets, life seems to have regained its calm since the dispatch of reinforcements to the troops of police. An exception was observed in Canton, in the south of the country. On the night of Tuesday to Wednesday November 30, 2022, clashes broke out between protesters still motivated by the abandonment of the zero Covid strategy and the authorities. Faced with the small demonstration, the police, dressed in white overalls and transparent anti-riot shields, had a repressive response. The images of an RFI correspondent in China, Stéphane Lagarde, also show the throwing of projectiles by demonstrators in the direction of the police and the overthrow of several containment barricades.
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The fire of a building at the origin of the demonstrations
A burning building, at least ten people who died in the fire and chain reactions pointing to the restrictions linked to Covid-19 guilty of this heavy human toll. In China, the starting point of the protest that hit the country during the weekend of November 26 and 27 is linked to the rules supposed to limit the spread of the coronavirus considered too strict by residents and having, according to them, slowed down the emergency response when the fire broke out in the building in Urumqi. During any localized confinement provided for by the zero Covid strategy, the roads are hampered by obstacles and access to certain buildings is even blocked to prevent the population from evading quarantine. While these obstacles are partly responsible for the very late arrival of relief, it is now too much for some of the Chinese, subject to a strict regime since 2020. Enough to trigger a wave of protests.
Unprecedented demonstrations and signs of protest
In China, the demonstrations are rare and those of the end of November took on an unprecedented scale since those of Tian’anmen – which had ended in a bloodbath with several thousand deaths and a repression carried out by the army – without might as well equal them, far from it. With several hundred people in the streets of some thirty major Chinese cities and students mobilized in several dozen universities, the mobilizations did not go unnoticed. But in China there are no banners to carry the demands, simple slogans to demand more freedoms. “We want freedom, democracy, freedom of expression of the press”, launched some in a main street of Shanghai, as noted by the correspondent on the spot of France 24. “We do not need Covid tests, we need freedom” demanded others from the side of Beijing. Other songs also resounded in the processions, chanted by a minority, to demand the resignation of President Xi Jinping. Other symbols have been used to defend other causes: blank sheets held up by students, for the vast majority. A gesture supposed to denounce the censorship operated by the Chinese government.
A minority movement
Comparing the Chinese protests of late November 2022 to those of 1989 is a mistake. If only by the difference in magnitude between the two mobilizations. The protest movements of November 26 and 27 were far from affecting a majority of Chinese, in part because of censorship on social networks which complicates the circulation of images of the demonstrations. In addition to being in the minority, the demonstrations in China were sporadic and not generalized according to Antoine Bondaz, researcher at the Foundation for Strategic Research and specialist in China, interviewed by TV5 World : “Le discontent is strongly linked to the lack of prospects in the areas [soumises aux confinements]but when the curves are reversed, there are, in fact, fewer disputes because people think that it is almost over”.
The scale of the protest movement was also limited by censorship. Because with the few images of international news broadcast in China without first government control, many Chinese believe that the whole world is still living to the rhythm of Covid-19 and confinement. It was a few people who had access to images of the 2022 World Cup bringing together thousands of people without a mask who became aware of the delay of the Asian giant in the face of the virus.