China affirms zero-COVID stance
BEIJING, Nov 28, (AP): Authorities eased anti-virus rules in scattered areas but affirmed China’s severe “zero- COVID” strategy Monday after crowds demanded President Xi Jinping resign during protests against controls that confine millions of people to their homes.
The government made no comment on the protests or criticism of Xi, the most widespread display of opposition to the ruling Communist Party in decades. There was no official word on how many people were detained after police used pepper spray against protesters in Shanghai and struggled to suppress demonstrations in other cities including Beijing, the capital.
The city government of Beijing announced it would no longer set up gates to block access to apartment compounds where infections are found. It made no mention of a deadly fire last week that set off the protests following angry questions online about whether firefighters or victims trying to escape were blocked by locked doors or other anti-virus controls.
“Passages must remain clear for medical transportation, emergency escapes and rescues,” said a city official in charge of epidemic control, Wang Daguang, according to the official China News Service.
“Zero COVID,” which aims to isolate every infected person, has helped to keep China’s case numbers lower than those of the United States and other major countries. But people in some areas have been confined at home for up to four months and say they lack reliable food supplies.
The ruling party promised last month to reduce the disruption of “zero COVID” by changing quarantine and other rules. But public acceptance is wearing thin after a spike in infections prompted cities to tighten controls, fueling complaints overzealous enforcement is hurting the public.
On Monday, the number of new daily cases rose to 40,347, including 36,525 with no symptoms.
The ruling party newspaper People’s Daily called for its anti-virus strategy to be carried out effectively, indicating Xi’s government has no plans to change course.
“Facts have fully proved that each version of the prevention and control plan has withstood the test of practice,” a People’s Daily commentator wrote.
Also Monday, the southern manufacturing and trade metropolis of Guangzhou, the biggest hotspot in China’s latest wave of infections, announced some residents will no longer be required to undergo mass testing. It cited a need to conserve resources.
Protests spread to at least eight major cities after at least 10 people died Thursday in the fire in an apartment building in Urumqi in the northwestern region of Xinjiang.
Most protesters complained about excessive restrictions, but some shouted slogans against Xi, China’s most powerful leader since at least the 1980s. In a video that was verified by The Associated Press, a crowd in Shanghai on Saturday chanted, “Xi Jinping! Step down! CCP! Step down!”
Infection
Police using pepper spray broke up that demonstration, but people returned to the same spot on Sunday for another protest. A reporter saw an unknown number being driven away in a police bus after being detained.
Elsewhere, videos on social media that said they were filmed in Nanjing in the east, Chongqing and Chengdu in the southwest and other cities showed protesters tussling with police in white protective suits or dismantling barricades used to seal off neighborhoods. The Associated Press could not verify that all those protests took place or where.
Earlier, the ruling party faced public anger over the deaths of two children whose parents said anti-virus controls hampered efforts to get emergency medical help.
Urumqi and a smaller city in Xinjiang, Korla, announced markets and other businesses in areas deemed at low risk of infection would reopen this week and public bus service would resume in what appeared to be an attempt to mollify the public.
There was no indication whether residents in higher-risk areas would be allowed out of thei
Demonstrators poured into the streets over the weekend in numerous cities including Shanghai and Beijing, chanting slogans and confronting police. A number of university campuses also experienced protests.
Such widespread demonstrations are unprecedented since the 1989 studentled pro-democracy movement centered on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square that was crushed with deadly force by the army.
Most people in the weekend protests focused their anger on rigid pandemic lockdowns, a form of virtual house arrest that can last for months and has been criticized as neither scientific nor effective.
But some also shouted for the downfall of Xi and of the Communist Party that has ruled China with an iron fist for 73 years, criticism that is deemed seditious and punishable by years in prison. Protesters expressed frustration over a system that is neither performing as promised or responding to their concerns.
So far, the response from the authorities has been muted. Some police in Shanghai used pepper spray to drive away demonstrators, and some protesters were detained and driven away in a bus. However, China’s vast internal security apparatus is famed for identifying people it considers troublemakers and carting them off from their homes when few are watching.
Police in Shanghai also beat, kicked and handcuffed a BBC journalist who was filming the protests. Authorities said they arrested him for his own good “in case he caught COVID from the crowd,” the BBC said in a statement.
“We do not consider this a credible explanation,” it said.
The possibility of further protests is unclear, and government censors have been scrubbing the internet of videos and messages supporting the demonstrations.
The central government, meanwhile, reiterated its stance that anticoronavirus measures should be “targeted and precise” and cause the least possible disruption to people’s lives.
That doesn’t appear, however, to be reflected at the local level. Cadres are threatened with losing their jobs or suffering other punishments if outbreaks occur in their jurisdictions, prompting them to adopt the most radical options.