Faced for the first time in thirty years with a nationwide wave of protests against the hardliners, Covid-19's health restrictions is in China, with the country's political leadership now handing the scepter of repression over to the Chinese security apparatus, as protests against the measures intensify by the day.
Despite an overwhelming police presence and unprecedented measures to repress protesters, including the deletion or confiscation of photos, videos and social media posts (while Twitter and Telegram have been banned), military vehicles appeared yesterday in major urban centres of the country in a show of force, signalling an escalation of the repression operation.
In related snapshots posted on social media, tanks are seen marching through the streets of Shanghai, Wuhan and Hangzhou, sometimes at night and sometimes by day, to act as a deterrent against protesters.
Despite patrols, dozens of arrests, phone warnings from police and barricades even in central parts of cities, the protests are not stopping after the weekend "explosion" of protests that brought Beijing up against the first mass reaction of this magnitude since 1989.
On Tuesday night there were new protests, marked by violent incidents, in Guangzhou, a city of 19 million people. Citizens clashed with police officers wearing full white protective uniforms and holding shields over their heads to prevent them from being hit by objects hurled at them, footage circulating on social media sites showed. In another video, detainees are shown in handcuffs.
Although China's internal security chief pledged yesterday to "effectively maintain overall social stability", however, Chen Uyengin urged law enforcement officials to "resolutely crack down on infiltration and sabotage activities by hostile forces, as well as illegal and criminal acts that disrupt social order," the state-run Xinhua news agency reported, without, however, explicitly referring to the protests.
For most analysts, however, Uengin's "message" is a harbinger of the harsh crackdown to come if the protests continue in the coming days, stirring up memories of the pro-democracy movement in Tiananmen Square. This is because the restriction of individual freedoms due to Beijing's "zero Covid" policy is now taking on the characteristics of a direct challenge to the overall policy of China's leader, Xi Jinping, with some of the protesters publicly calling for his resignation, protesting the lack of democracy and the censorship clampdown.
In the same vein as the internal security chief, police officers are still reportedly telling protesters that the mass protests are instigated by "foreign centers" in an attempt to instill suspicion and doubt and while special measures have been taken in recent hours at university campuses as students lead the protests.
Anon home
In particular, some universities in Beijing have launched an early return of students to their homes for the winter break by offering online classes, according to CNN, officially citing protection from the virus, though they aim to discourage the student body from joining the protests, according to the news network.
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In addition to "lashing out" at protesters and while China continues its relentlessly strict border controls, aggressive isolation of close contacts, the sudden closure of airports and public places, and temporary lockdowns, China's health officials joined the "dance" of containment yesterday as the "carrot" to the country's public opinion.
Notably, three years after the outbreak of the pandemic, health officials opened a window of easing individual restrictions for the first time yesterday, as they appeared positive to "corrective moves" against the harsh measures, the failure of which they attributed solely to their misapplication by local officials.
The lockdown to suppress the spread of the virus should be lifted "as soon as possible" after the outbreaks, Chinese officials said yesterday during a press conference of the National Health Commission in Beijing, although they defended Xi Jiping's policy of drastically limiting the spread of the coronavirus.
Window of Relaxation
At the same time as accelerating the lifting of restrictions, Chinese officials announced a plan to increase vaccination rates among the elderly, although commission spokesman Mi Feng stressed that governments must "respond and resolve the reasonable demands of the masses" in a timely manner.
In contrast, China's Foreign Ministry also came out in favour of coronavirus protection measures yesterday, with its spokesman, Zhao Lijian, saying in an emergency briefing that "China is a country under the rule of law, Chinese citizens enjoy various legal rights and freedoms that are fully protected by law." "At the same time, any rights and freedoms should be exercised within the law," he said."
The possibility of a partial relaxation of the measures in the face of strong social pressure was welcomed by markets yesterday, while the demands of the youth, who are leading the opposition, include curbing censorship. Already, images of Chinese youth holding white papers in response to widespread censorship, especially on the internet, where hundreds of posts, videos and comments on social media have disappeared all at once, are widening the fields of challenge to the Chinese leadership.
It should be noted that the United Nations earlier this week urged the Chinese authorities to guarantee the "right of citizens to demonstrate peacefully," a position shared by John Kirby, the communications coordinator at the US National Security Council. Finally, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was also critical of Beijing, saying that "instead of listening to the protests of its people, the Chinese government has chosen to further repress, including by attacking a BBC journalist."
Source: Proto Thema
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