Hundreds of demonstrators and police clashed in Shanghai as protests against China’s strict Covid-19 restrictions broke out for a third day and spread to several cities, in the biggest test for President Xi Jinping since taking office. He won a historic third term in power.
The wave of civil disobedience is unprecedented in mainland China in the past decade, with frustration mounting over Xi’s signature Zero covid policy Almost three years into the epidemic.
Protests launched by A A deadly fire in an apartment in the far west of the country Last week it was held on Sunday in cities including Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu, Wuhan and Guangzhou.
on Monday China It set a new daily record for 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 about the impact of the protests on the world’s second largest economy.
In the early hours of Monday morning in Beijing, two groups of protesters numbering at least 1,000 gathered along the Chinese capital’s Third Ring Road near the Liangma River, refusing to disperse.
On Sunday in Shanghai, police maintained a heavy presence on Wololuki Road, named after Urumqi, where the previous day’s candlelight vigil had turned into protests.
We just want our basic human rights. We cannot leave our homes without getting tested. “The incident in Xinjiang has pushed people too far,” said a 26-year-old protester in Shanghai who asked not to be identified.
People here are not violent, but the police arrest them for no reason. They tried to catch me but the people around me grabbed my arm and pulled me back so I could escape.”
By Sunday evening, hundreds of people had gathered in the area. Some of them crowded with the police trying to disperse them. People carried white papers as an expression of protest.
on Saturday, Shanghai people cheered “There are no PCR tests, we want freedom!” Followed by rounds of repeated calls of “Freedom! Freedom!”
Protests broke out on Friday in Urumqithe regional capital of the far western region of Xinjiang, after footage of a fire in an apartment building that killed at least 10 people the day before, leading to accusations that the Covid-19 lockdown was a factor in the death toll.
Urumqi officials surprisingly held a press conference in the early hours of Saturday to deny that COVID measures had impeded the escape and rescue. Many of Urumqi’s 4 million residents are under some of the country’s longest lockdowns, banned from leaving their homes for up to 100 days.
Late Sunday, a BBC journalist was seen on camera “being beaten and kicked by the police”. before being arrested in Shanghai. Footage on social media showed Edward Lawrence dragged to the ground in handcuffs, while in another video he was seen saying: “Call the consulate now.”
A BBC spokesperson said: “The BBC is deeply concerned about the treatment of 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 China bureau, was tweeting from the scene of the protest in Shanghai on Sunday morning UK time.
He wrote: “I am at the scene of the extraordinary anti-Covid-Zero protest last night in Shanghai. Many people are gathered here watching quietly. Lots of police.”
In the central city of Wuhan, where the epidemic began three years ago, videos on social media showed hundreds of residents taking to the streets, smashing metal barriers, overturning Covid testing tents and demanding an end to the lockdowns.
Another city that saw public opposition was the northwest city of Lanzhou, where on Saturday residents turned over the tents of Covid-19 workers and smashed testing booths, social media posts show.
Large-scale public protests are rare in China, where space for dissent has been decimated under Xi, forcing citizens mostly to vent their frustrations on social media, playing a cat-and-mouse game with censorship.
China has remained sticking to Xi’s no-Covid policy, even as most countries in the world have lifted most restrictions. Although low by global standards, case numbers in China have been at record highs for days, with nearly 40,000 new infections on Saturday, prompting further lockdowns in cities across the country. Beijing has defended the policy as life-saving and necessary to prevent the healthcare system from being overwhelmed.
Frustration is boiling over a month after Xi secured a third term at the helm of the Chinese Communist PartyAnd the Much anger is directed at China’s leader.
In a video on social media, a protester accused Xi of locking people up and locking them in their homes.
“Xi Jinping steps down, the Communist Party steps down,” he says in the widely shared post.
This will put serious pressure on the party to respond. “There’s a good chance that one response will be crackdown, and they’ll arrest and prosecute some of the protesters,” said Dan Mattingly, an assistant professor of political science at Yale University.
However, he said, the unrest is far from that of 1989, when protests culminated in a bloody crackdown in Tiananmen Square.
He added that as long as Xi has the Chinese elite and the military on his side, he will not face any real danger to his grip on power.
Reuters contributed to this report
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