.webp)
Clashes in Shanghai as protests over zero-Covid
policy grip China
Beijing, Chengdu and Wuhan see demonstrations as anger
over Xi Jinping’s strict Covid policies builds, in a test for the Communist
party
Helen
Davidson in Taipei and Verna Yu
Mon 28 Nov
2022 00.08 GMT
Hundreds of
demonstrators and police have clashed in Shanghai as protests over China’s
stringent Covid restrictions flared for a third day and spread to several
cities, in the biggest test for president Xi Jinping since he secured a
historic third term in power.
The wave of
civil disobedience is unprecedented in mainland China in the past decade, as
frustration mounts over Xi’s signature zero-Covid policy nearly three years
into the pandemic.
Protests
triggered by a deadly apartment fire in the far west of the country last week
took place on Sunday in cities including Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu, Wuhan and
Guangzhou.
On Monday
China reported a new daily record of new Covid-19 infections, with 40,347
cases. The cities of Guangzhou and Chongqing, with thousands of cases, are
struggling to contain outbreaks. Hundreds of infections were also recorded in
several other cities across the country.
Chinese
stocks fell sharply as investors raised concerns over the impact of the
protests on the world’s second-largest economy.
In the
early hours of Monday in Beijing, two groups of protesters totalling at least
1,000 people were gathered along the Chinese capital’s 3rd Ring Road near the
Liangma River, refusing to disperse.
On Sunday
in Shanghai, police kept a heavy presence on Wulumuqi Road, which is named
after Urumqi, and where a candlelight vigil the day before turned into
protests.
“We just
want our basic human rights. We can’t leave our homes without getting a test.
It was the accident in Xinjiang that pushed people too far,” said a 26-year-old
protester in Shanghai who declined to be identified.
“The people
here aren’t violent, but the police are arresting them for no reason. They
tried to grab me but the people all around me grabbed my arms so hard and
pulled me back so I could escape.”
By Sunday
evening, hundreds of people gathered in the area. Some jostled with police
trying to disperse them. People held up blank sheets of paper as an expression
of protest.
On
Saturday, people in Shanghai had chanted “No PCR tests, we want freedom!” followed
by rounds of repeated calls for “Freedom! Freedom!”
The
protests erupted on Friday in Urumqi, the regional capital of the far west
Xinjiang region, after footage of a fire in a residential building that killed
at least 10 people the day before led to accusations that a Covid lockdown was
a factor in the death toll.
Urumqi
officials abruptly held a news conference in the early hours of Saturday to
deny Covid measures had hampered escape and rescue. Many of Urumqi’s 4 million
residents have been under some of the country’s longest lockdowns, barred from
leaving their homes for as long as 100 days.
Late on
Sunday, a BBC journalist was seen on camera being “beaten and kicked by police”
before being arrested in Shanghai. Footage on social media showed Edward
Lawrence being dragged to the ground in handcuffs, while he was seen saying in
another video: “Call the consulate now”.
A BBC
spokesperson said: “The BBC is extremely concerned about the treatment of our
journalist Ed Lawrence, who was arrested and handcuffed while covering the
protests in Shanghai.
“He was
held for several hours before being released,” the spokesperson said, adding
that he had been covering the protests as an accredited journalist.
Lawrence, a
senior journalist and camera operator for the BBC’s China bureau, was tweeting
from the scene of the protest in Shanghai on Sunday morning UK time.
He wrote:
“I’m at the scene of last night’s extraordinary anti Covid-zero protest in
Shanghai. Many people are gathered here quietly watching. Lots of cops.”
In the
central city of Wuhan, where the pandemic began three years ago, videos on
social media showed hundreds of residents take to the streets, smashing through
metal barricades, overturning Covid testing tents and demanding an end to
lockdowns.
Other
cities that have seen public dissent include Lanzhou in the north-west, where
residents on Saturday overturned Covid staff tents and smashed testing booths,
posts on social media appear to show.
Widespread
public protest is rare in China, where room for dissent has been all but
eliminated under Xi, forcing citizens mostly to vent their frustration on
social media, where they play cat-and-mouse with censors.
China has
stuck with Xi’s zero-Covid policy even as much of the world has lifted most
restrictions. While low by global standards, China’s case numbers have hit
record highs for days, with nearly 40,000 new infections on Saturday, prompting
yet more lockdowns in cities across the country. Beijing has defended the
policy as life-saving and necessary to prevent overwhelming the healthcare
system.
Frustration
is boiling just over a month after Xi secured a third term at the helm of
China’s Communist party, and much of the anger is being directed at China’s
leader.
In a video
on social media, a protester accused Xi of locking people up and confining them
to their homes.
“Xi Jinping
step down, Communist Party step down”, he says in the post that has been widely
shared.
“This will
put serious pressure on the party to respond. There is a good chance that one
response will be repression, and they will arrest and prosecute some
protesters,” said Dan Mattingly, assistant professor of political science at
Yale University.
Still, he
said, the unrest is far from that seen in 1989, when protests culminated in the
bloody crackdown in Tiananmen Square.
He added
that as long as Xi had China’s elite and the military on his side, he would not
face any meaningful risk to his grip on power.
Reuters contributed to this report
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário