Chinese protests spread over government’s covid restrictions
Summary
Demonstrations have erupted in Beijing, Shanghai and other major citiesProtests are erupting in major cities in China over President Xi Jinping‘s zero-tolerance approach to Covid-19, an unusual show of defiance in the country as the economic and social costs from snap lockdowns and other strict restrictions escalate.
Demonstrations occurred throughout the weekend in Beijing, Shanghai and the eastern city of Nanjing, according to eyewitness accounts. Video footage and photos circulating on social media, which The Wall Street Journal wasn’t able to independently verify, suggest protests broke out in several other cities, including Wuhan, the original epicenter of the pandemic.
The protests followed demonstrations on Friday in Urumqi, the capital of the remote region of Xinjiang, where a deadly fire enraged residents who had struggled with lockdowns of more than 100 days. Residents flooded social media with comments suggesting that Covid restrictions contributed to a delay in putting out the fire, in which officials said 10 people died.
On Saturday, videos circulating on social media showed crowds gathering on a street in central Shanghai calling for a lifting of lockdowns. The videos were verified by Storyful, a social-media research company owned by News Corp, parent company of The Wall Street Journal.
One clip showed protesters standing around a sign that says Wulumuqi Middle Road, named after Urumqi. The protest started as a spontaneous and quiet memorial service for the dead in Urumqi, with people carrying flowers and lighted candles, according to witnesses.
One middle-aged Shanghai resident said he stopped by on his way home and joined the crowd in signing songs, including “Do You Hear the People Sing?" from the musical Les Misérables and the Chinese national anthem. A friend who grew up in Xinjiang began to cry, he said.
“(We in) Shanghai can relate to that, because we had gone through such a long lockdown," he said, referring to more than two months of iron-fisted Covid controls imposed on the city earlier this year.
The mood intensified. Using expletives and call-and-response chanting, some protesters began to denounce both Mr. Xi and his Covid-control strategy. Another clip from the scene showed demonstrators standing across from lines of police.
The clip showed one man chanting, “The Communist Party." Others responded, “Step down."
“Xi Jinping," the man shouted. “Step down," others responded.
Other videos and photographs circulating online showed students demonstrating at the Communication University of China in Nanjing, with one clip showing some chanting, “Long live the people."
The Journal spoke to people in both Shanghai and Nanjing, who confirmed that the clips showed events taking place in those cities on Saturday.
In some parts of Beijing, where security measures are among the tightest in the country, residents were marching out of closed-off compounds Saturday, with some demanding an easing of what they called excessive Covid restrictions, according to videos on social media and locals who participated.
On the campus of Peking University, one of the country’s most prestigious schools, students wrote anti-Covid protest slogans in red paint and roughly 200 later gathered to sing the Internationale, according to an undergraduate student who participated. School authorities tried to get the crowd to disperse, but the students mocked them saying that the only thing they were good at was censoring speech, the student said.
“It was exciting to see the students were so emboldened," he said.
On Chinese social-media, users raced against censors to spread images and news of the protests, along with expressions of solidarity. “Long live the people, may the dead rest in peace," said one message that spread widely. Others posted an image of a blank white sheet of paper—a nod to censorship—with the words “I love you, China. I love you, young people."
The protests continued Sunday, with students gathering around noon on the campus of Tsinghua University, another elite school in Beijing. Some in the crowd carried sheets of paper that were either blank or had an exclamation mark inside a red circle—the symbol that indicates an online post has been deleted—according to eyewitness video footage shared with the Journal. The students sang songs and chanted “democracy and rule of law!"
A school official spoke to the crowd with a megaphone and asked if they would agree that things were getting better since the government announced measures to reduce restrictions earlier this month, the footage showed. Several in the crowd responded “No!"
Peking University and Tsinghua didn’t respond to requests for comments. A person answering the phone at the Shanghai municipal government said no one was available to answer questions on the weekend. Subsequent calls rang unanswered. Calls to the Beijing municipal government and to the Communication University in Nanjing rang unanswered.
Urumqi officials said after the fire last week that rescuers had to remove some barriers, but attributed a delay in putting out the fire to too many cars parked in the compound. On Saturday, Urumqi officials said normal activities would gradually resume in areas of the city considered at low risk for Covid.
Open displays of anger are rare in China, where crackdowns on dissent have intensified over the past decade. Having protests over the same issue break out in multiple Chinese cities is almost unheard of, outside of nationalist outpourings, such as anti-Japanese protests. Since the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, the ruling party has allowed some local demonstrations, but made it a priority to prevent nationwide protests.
The protests highlight the rising toll on Chinese society from a Covid strategy built around mass testing and confinement to quash even minor outbreaks—an approach that has become increasingly unsustainable.
The strategy saved lives and proved effective earlier in the pandemic, which started in Wuhan in early 2020. It has come to underpin Mr. Xi’s view that China has managed the virus better than the West.
However, more contagious strains of Covid-19 have since made it all but impossible to completely clear out the virus. Meanwhile, frequent lockdowns have kept businesses closed and pushed up youth unemployment, with China now facing its worst slowdown in decades.
In addition, there have been many reported cases of people who have died of other diseases they couldn’t get treated for because of lockdowns.
Wary of the high stakes, China’s top leadership earlier this month unveiled plans to “optimize and adjust" the strict zero-Covid policy to rescue the economy. However, local officials across the country doubled down on restrictions when cases started to rise this winter.
“A lot of people are reaching the breaking point," said Yanzhong Huang, a public-health expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, who has been closely monitoring the Covid situation in China.
China saw nearly 40,000 new Covid-19 cases Saturday, including 4,307 in Beijing, according to the latest official tally.
Mr. Huang and several other analysts compared the waves of Covid-related protests with the public sentiment around the 1989 Tiananmen protests.
“If mishandled by the government, the highly volatile situation could quickly evolve into the most severe political crisis since Tiananmen," said Mr. Huang.
Following the Urumqi fire, users of social-media platform Weibo left fresh comments under the last post by Li Wenliang, a Wuhan doctor whose death from Covid-19 in 2020 sparked an outpouring of anger at authorities who had earlier tried to prevent him from publicizing the outbreak.
“Dr. Li, you were the whistleblower when the virus came. With the fog so thick, who will light the way for us now?" said one of the comments.
Videos uploaded Sunday on Chinese social media, with geolocation tags showing they were shot in Wuhan, show residents smashing road barriers set up during the pandemic, while others shout “lift the restrictions!"
As of Sunday, there were 720 areas in Wuhan labeled as high risk for Covid in China’s official ratings.
The Wuhan government didn’t immediately respond to an emailed request for comment. Calls to the government offices rang unanswered Sunday evening.
Police detained several protesters in Urumqi and Shanghai, but the authorities appear to have largely refrained from large-scale violent confrontation with demonstrators.
One Shanghai resident who attended Saturday’s protest said he was bewildered that authorities didn’t act more aggressively after people began calling for the downfall of the Communist Party.
“Perhaps the police were waiting for instructions from above," said the resident.
—Stella Yifan Xie, Cao Li and Brian Spegele contributed to this article.