COVID curbs spark protests in China

Hundreds in Beijing, Shanghai and other cities pour out into streets to vent anger at the state’s tough zero-COVID policy

BEIJING—Hundreds of people took to the streets in Beijing, Shanghai and other cities to protest China’s zero-COVID policy in a rare outpouring of public anger against the state. A deadly fire that killed 10 people in Xinjiang province and blamed on COVID curbs added to public frustration over China’s hardline virus strategy, with many growing weary of lockdowns, quarantines and fre- quent mass testing.

BEIJING— Hundreds of people took to the streets in Beijing and Shanghai on Sunday to protest China’s zero-COVID policy in a rare outpouring of public anger against the state.

China’s hard-line virus strategy is stoking public frustration, with many growing weary of snap lockdowns, lengthy quarantines and mass testing campaigns.

A fire on Thursday that killed 10 people in Urumqi, the capital of northwest China’s Xinjiang region, has become a fresh catalyst for public anger, with many blaming lengthy COVID lockdowns for hampering rescue efforts. Authorities deny the claims.

Hundreds rallied at Beijing’s elite Tsinghua University to protest against lockdowns on Sunday, one witness who wished to remain anonymous told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

“At 11:30 a.m. students started holding up signs at the entrance of the canteen, then more and more people joined. Now there are 200 to 300 people,” they said.

Participants sang the national anthem and “The Internationale”—a standard of the international communist movement—and chanted “freedom will prevail” and “no to lockdowns, we want freedom,” they said.

They described students holding up blank pieces of paper, a symbolic protest against censorship.

Blank white paper

And in Shanghai on Sunday afternoon, hundreds of people gathered in the megacity’s downtown to hold what appeared to be a silent protest, an eyewitness told AFP, near where a demonstration had erupted just hours earlier.

Demonstrators holding blank pieces of paper and white flowers stood silently at several intersections, the person said under condition of anonymity, before police officers eventually moved to clear the blocked roads.

Crowds had gathered hours before on nearby Wulumuqi street—named for Urumqi in Mandarin—with video showing protesters chanting “Xi Jinping, step down! CCP, step down!” in a rare display of public opposition to the Chinese Communist Party’s top leadership. The video was widely shared on social media and geolocated by AFP.

In another widely shared video, people could be heard shouting “lift lockdown for Urumqi, lift lockdown for Xinjiang, lift lockdown for all of China!”

A person who attended the Shanghai protests but who asked not to be identified told AFP that the first rally was in full swing at 2 a.m. (1800 GMT), with one group mourning the 10 people killed in the Urumqi fire while another group chanted slogans.

Video taken by an eyewitness showed a large crowd shouting and holding up blank pieces of paper as they faced several lines of police.

The attendee said there were minor clashes but that overall the police were “civilized.”

Taken by police

Multiple witnesses said several people were taken away by the police.

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.

Frustration is boiling just over a month after Xi secured a third term at the helm of China’s Communist Party.

Authorities were swift to curb online discussion of the protest, with related phrases scrubbed from the Twitter-like Weibo platform almost immediately after footage of the rallies emerged.

Other vigils took place overnight at universities across China, including one at Tsinghua’s neighbor Peking University, an undergraduate participant told AFP.

Speaking anonymously for fear of repercussions, he said some anti-COVID slogans had been graffitied on a wall in the university.

“I heard people yelling: ‘No to COVID tests, yes to freedom!,’” he said.