CHINA PROTESTS. In Beijing and Shanghai, the police presence was reinforced to avoid new demonstrations on the evening of Monday, November 28, 2022. The return to calm could only be temporary as citizens rail against anti-Covid restrictions deemed too draconian.
The essential :
- An unprecedented wave of protests has been sweeping across China for the past few days. In twenty cities and several dozen universities, the population has mobilized to denounce the health strategy of zero Covid and its draconian restrictions.
- In addition to the number and scale of the demonstrations in China, the events are surprising by the virulence of the slogans, several of which demand the resignation of President Xi Jinping, and by the strong police repression.
- However, calm seemed to have returned to Beijing and Shanghai on Monday, November 28 after a weekend of demonstrations. A return to normal due to the strongly reinforced police presence in the big cities.
- The deadly fire in a confined building was the trigger for protests and demands for the abandonment of the zero Covid strategy. Despite the requests, it is unlikely that the Chinese government will respond favorably to the requirements, in particular because of the insufficient vaccination rate due to the use of the Chinese vaccine considered to be less effective than the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines and the low number of recalls carried out. The lifting of the zero Covid restrictions would lead to a carnage in China.
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08:40 – Hong Kong in support of Chinese protesters
If the demonstrations were less numerous this Monday in China, in Hong Kong dozens of people gathered near the Chinese University to support the demands against the draconian health restrictions of the zero Covid strategy and to pay tribute to the victims of the Urumqi fire, according to theAFP. On the spot, the demonstrators chanted: “Don’t look away, don’t forget!” The fire that killed ten people last week was one of the triggers for protests in China.
08:27 – Police reinforcements to avoid new demonstrations
A return to calm was observed in several major Chinese cities during the day and evening of Monday, November 28 after an entire weekend of demonstrations. The cause ? A considerable reinforcement of the forces of order, particularly in Beijing and Shanghai. This police presence is still in place on Tuesday to avoid the formation of new mobilizations. Not only to be present, the police do not hesitate to question certain passers-by about their participation in the historic demonstrations of the weekend, possibly raising threats of reprisals.
11/28/22 – 23:42 – Why are the Chinese authorities “caught in the crossfire”?
END OF LIVE – As the rumble rises among the Chinese, in the face of the still very strict measures against Covid-19, for the historian and specialist in China François Godement, questioned on this subject by RTS, the authorities are “caught in the crossfire because they have not seen enough of what needs to be done beyond confinement”. The historian believes that faced with the rumble, they cannot afford to release everything at once, because vaccination coverage is not as high as in Europe. He explains that if many Chinese have been vaccinated, they have been with the Chinese vaccine, considered less effective than Pfizer or Moderna. Similarly, there were very few recalls. François Godement affirms that “if China relaxes controls with a vaccination coverage that is not optimal, it is clear that it will have [à faire à] another earthquake” with the rapid multiplication of cases of coronavirus, hospitals that will not be able to take care of everyone and thousands of deaths.
11/28/22 – 10:41 p.m. – Why are these protests in China so surprising?
Asked by the Swiss Radio Television (RTS), the historian and specialist in China, François Godement, explained that there are, according to him, “at least two surprises”. “Indeed, the violence of slogans in Shanghai”, he notes in a first, recalling however that leaflets had already been distributed there in the subway during the XX National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), last October, against Xi Jinping’s dictatorship. “The second surprise is that in a system where internet surveillance in principle isolates everyone and forces incidents to remain local, we have an explosion of simultaneous incidents throughout China,” he explains. he, before listing: “40 to 50 universities, at least twenty cities listed on social media, obviously with very different levels of protest.” But for François Godement, “what is probably most important is that it is clear at this stage that at least a large part of the urban population understands and follows these events”.
11/28/22 – 9:49 p.m. – After the mobilization the day before, a rather calm evening in Beijing
A little earlier in the evening, we told you about the calm that had returned to Shanghai. It seems that the authorities have also regained control in Beijing where everything seemed very quiet on Monday evening, despite the presence of the police in number. CNN correspondent Selina Wang said on Twitter that she had returned to “exactly the same place where the protests took place in Beijing last night, in Liangmaqiao”. As his video shows, the place has become “totally calm” again. “Instead, an entire street of police vans. This is a police state with far-reaching surveillance. No social media that makes it easy for people to mobilize and come together,” explains- she again in her tweet.
Went back to the exact same place where protests were in Beijing last night in Liangmaqiao. Totally quiet. Instead, entire street of police vans.
This is a police state w/ far-reaching security/surveillance. No social media that allows people to easily mobilize and gather either pic.twitter.com/CQtpu5qCwr—Selina Wang (@selinawangtv) November 28, 2022
28/11/22 – 20:46 – What are Friedmann’s equations doing on the placards of some angry Chinese people?
Several Chinese demonstrators have decided to do a little more original than simple blank sheets to criticize power while circumventing censorship. As franceinfo reports, in Beijing, some students from one of the most prestigious universities in the Middle Kingdom, Tsinghua University, drew A4 sheets on which were written… Friedmann equations. But what is the Russian mathematician and physicist doing in this story? If his work has undoubtedly brought a lot to science, it is his name Friedman, which is reminiscent of the English expression “Freed man”, “liberated man”, which would have inspired the students for their signs.
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The fire of a building at the origin of the demonstrations
A burning building, 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 is hitting the country is linked to the rules to limit the spread of the coronavirus deemed too strict by residents and having, according to them, slowed down the intervention of the emergency services when the fire broke out. in Urumqi. Indeed, in order to prevent the population of this northwestern city from escaping confinement, the roads are blocked by obstacles and some buildings are even blocked. If only the first elements of a difficult circulation have been confirmed, it is now too much for some of the Chinese, subject to a strict regime since 2020. Enough to trigger a wave of disputes.
In China, the protests are not quite like the ones we know. There, no big banners, just white sheets brandished to denounce censorship. But slogans hostile to President Xi Jinping resounded in the processions, organized spontaneously on Sunday November 27, notably in Beijing and Shanghai. “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 tests Covid, we need freedom” demanded others from the side of Beijing.
Demonstration in support of Urumqi in Shanghai, and against health policy. “We want freedom, democracy, freedom of expression of the press” ask the young people gathered (I let the Sinics appreciate this last slogan). I have never seen this in China pic.twitter.com/nTSxRre1NP
— Simon Leplatre (@SLeplatre) November 26, 2022
A minority movement
Many observers explain that such a protest movement has not been known in China since the demonstrations of Tian’anmen, in 1989 which demanded more democracy in the country. They ended in a bloodbath with several thousand dead after an army-led crackdown was ordered. At this stage, the demonstrations are far from affecting a majority of Chinese, especially since censorship is raging on social networks where images of the movements are struggling to spread. Especially since in the middle of the Football World Cup, broadcast in China, the images of fans without masks in the stands are not shown, replaced by close-ups of the players or the staff of the teams.