Where Zero-COVID Protests Are Happening And What You Should Know
Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic began, China has had a zero-COVID policy. This means that their goal in fighting the virus is to keep cases as low as possible through whatever means necessary. Since these measures have included strict quarantine policies and city-wide lockdowns, zero-COVID protests have broken out among Chinese citizens who have grown weary of the oppressive government tactics.
China shocked the world when the government locked down the entire city of Wuhan—11 million people—during the initial outbreak in 2019. Now, three years since the virus leaked, zero-COVID protests are happening in 17 cities including Wuhan. Other locations include the capital of Beijing and the financial hub of Shanghai.
Recent demonstrations were sparked by a deadly November apartment building fire in Urumqi, the capital of the far-western region of Xinjiang. At least 10 people were killed and nine more injured when the strict lockdown conditions prevented firefighters from reaching the victims in time. Angry residents launched the first of their zero-COVID protests by marching to a government building and chanting demands for officials to bring the 100-plus-day lockdown to an end.
After the Urumqi demonstration, the government promised to lift the lockdown in stages. But they failed to provide a timeframe or even acknowledge the zero -COVID protests. In other cities, government officials have taken steps to ease the restrictions and proposed a softer approach to future attempts to control the virus’ spread.
In addition to the multi-city protests, gatherings have happened on college campuses, including Peking University, Tsinghua University in Beijing and Communication University of China in Nanjing. Some demonstrators held up blank sheets of white paper as a symbol against censorship while others held a candlelight vigil. Remarkably, many of the zero -COVID protests evolved into citizens calling for greater political freedoms.
Chinese state news agency Xinhua shared China’s most senior COVID-19 response official saying that a new stage of pandemic response was needed. The official cited several reasons to loosen their grip on the populace. These included the decreasing danger of the Omicron variant, the increase in public vaccinations and the “accumulating experience” of fighting the virus for three years.
As the demonstrations spread into the streets across the country, some protestors began calling for the removal of Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Large-scale demonstrations are an unusual sight in China. Smaller protests over local problems sometimes occur, but the zero-COVID protests are the biggest since the deadly Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement in 1989.
As usual, the Chinese government responded by cracking down on the zero-COVID protests by deploying police forces at main protest sites. They have also identified and called individual demonstrators to warn them against continuing the public gatherings. The government increased online censorship to block communication between protestors.
The United Nations and many countries have criticized the Communist Party’s mass surveillance system. China has huge police databases filled with facial scans, eyeball scans and other biometric data on its citizens. China has repeatedly denied charges of human rights abuses despite having detained and exploited up to two million Uyghurs (Muslim minorities).
“This is a different type of protest from the more localized protests we have seen recurring over the past two decades that tend to focus their claims and demands on local officials and on very targeted societal and economic issues,” said Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University who studies Chinese politics and media. “Instead, this time the protests have expanded to include the sharper expression of political grievances alongside concerns about Covid-19 lockdowns.”
