IDemonstrations against the harsh zero-Covid policy of head of state and party leader Xi Jinping took place in various parts of China over the weekend. They were the widest protests since the beginning of the pandemic, if not since the 1989 pro-democracy protests.
The trigger for the resentment was a high-rise building fire in Urumchi, the capital of the Xinjiang region. At least ten people were killed on Thursday. The suspicion immediately arose that the rigid corona measures could have delayed the rescue work of the fire brigade or prevented the fire victims in the high-rise building from escaping to the outside. Local authorities deny that. Violations of fire safety regulations related to disease control measures are currently ubiquitous in China.
First there were demonstrations and rallies of solidarity with the victims on Friday evening and Saturday in Urumqi. The protests later spread to other parts of the country. A rally in Shanghai, where thousands of mostly young people gathered on Wulumuqi Street on Sunday night, was particularly striking. Wulumuqi is the Chinese name for Urumchi. The demonstrators not only commemorated the dead, but also chanted slogans against Xi Jinping and the Communist Party, which rarely happens on the open street in China.
Demonstrators call for ‘freedom for Xinjiang’
Apparently, the demonstrators had organized themselves via the messaging service Telegram. For several hours into the morning, the crowd faced hundreds of police officers who had been bused in by the operations center to reinforce the patrol car crews. Individual demonstrators held up white sheets of paper in what appears to be a reference to Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement. Young people and members of parliament protested there in 2020 with blank slates against the introduction of the National Security Law, which criminalizes any criticism of the leadership. In Shanghai, crowds chanted “Free Xinjiang” and demanded an end to the zero-Covid policy. The protesters sang the Chinese national anthem and shouted “We are all Chinese”. Later they called for “democracy instead of dictatorship” and “freedom of the press”. At times, the Shanghai demonstrators also attacked the political leadership in Beijing head-on in a manner that was extremely unusual for China, shouting “down with the party” and “down with Xi Jinping”.
With candles, flowers and self-painted signs, people had previously thought of the victims of the fire disaster. The police, who were obviously overwhelmed by the situation, did not intervene most of the time, but violently arrested isolated demonstrators late in the hour and tried to disperse the crowd. Eyewitnesses reported police buses in which dozens of arrested people were said to be sitting. Police buses with hundreds of emergency services were still in and around Wulumuqi Street on Sunday afternoon. On Telegram, further protests with white notes were called for early Sunday evening.