China: Multiple protests in Beijing, Shanghai against COVID restrictions amid streak of record daily COVID cases

Protests against China’s strict Covid restrictions and continuous lockdowns have spread to many big cities including capital Beijing and financial hub Shanghai. Hundreds of demonstrators gathered in the capital Beijing on Sunday night and the protests continued in Shanghai for the second night over the weekend shouting anti-government slogans and calling for an end to COVID lockdowns.

China reported a fifth straight daily record of 40,347 new COVID-19 infections, of which 3,822 were symptomatic, the National Health Commission said on Monday. That compares with 39,791 new cases a day earlier with 3,709 symptomatic ones. China’s capital Beijing reported nearly 3900 cases on Monday with 840 symptomatic ones as compared to over 4300 a day before.

In an unprecedented display of solidarity to oppose the COVID restrictions which has entered their third year, hundreds of demonstrators gathered in Chaoyang district in the heart of capital Beijing late at night yesterday, where all the embassies are located and took part in the protest held the blank paper to express their discontent and acknowledge the censorship. Among anti-government slogans including against President Xi, they called for release of protesters in Shanghai who were arrested earlier. After about 4 hours of tussling between protesters and the Beijing police, police rounded up hundreds of them at around 0130 hours on the intervening night of Sunday and Monday.

Protesters in Shanghai again clashed with police last night as protests have flared and spread to several cities and universities which started in response to the anger after a deadly fire killed 10 people in Urumqi, Xinjiang apparently due to strict lockdowns. Reportedly, a BBC journalist was also assaulted and detained for several hours by Shanghai police during the coverage of the protests.

Urumqi’s death touched raw nerves among the Chinese population who poured out their anger on the streets by protesting without being fearful of punishment from authorities. Chinese people are frightened at the sight of being killed in a blaze in a locked-down apartment or being killed in a bus while transferring people to a quarantine facility and frustrated at the sight of people enjoying football world cup in Qatar while Chinese public remains in lockdown just for a handful COVID cases which are mostly asymptomatic or with mild symptoms.

This wave of demonstrations is unprecedented in mainland China since President Xi Jinping assumed power a decade ago, as frustration mounts over his signature zero-COVID policy. Observers see these protests as a rare pushback against authorities which is happening at the national level, spreading like wildfire and putting pressure on the ruling communist party.

Protesters have also been reported in the cities of Wuhan, Lanzhou, Nanjing, and Chengdu, while students on numerous university campuses around China gathered to demonstrate over the weekend. Big cities Guangzhou and Chongqing, with thousands of cases, are still struggling to contain outbreaks while hundreds of infections were recorded in several cities across the country on Sunday. Meanwhile, local authorities have been admonished by China’s state council for not correctly implementing the 20 points under the “optimized zero-COVID” policy recently announced as they are confused about what is the right way to control the infections without going overboard.