Heavy police presence after protests
Dissent spreads over lingering Covid curbs
BEIJING: China’s major cities of Beijing and Shanghai were blanketed with security yesterday in the wake of nationwide rallies calling for political freedoms and an end to Covid lockdowns.
The country’s leadership is facing a wave of protest not seen in decades, fuelled by anger over the unrelenting lockdowns as well as deep-rooted frustrations over China’s political direction.
A deadly fire last week in Urumqi, the capital of northwest China’s Xinjiang region, was the catalyst for public outrage, with protesters taking to the streets of cities around the country over the weekend.
The demonstrators said Covid restrictions were to blame for hampering rescue efforts — claims the government denied as it accused “forces with ulterior motives” of linking the fire to the strict virus measures.
Several protests were planned for Monday night but did not materialise, with journalists in Beijing and Shanghai noting a heavy police presence of hundreds of vehicles and officers on the streets.
People who had attended rallies over the weekend said on Monday they had received phone calls from law enforcement demanding information about their movements.
In Shanghai, near a site where weekend protests saw bold calls for the resignation of President Xi Jinping, bar staff told AFP they had been ordered to close at 10pm local time for “disease control”. Small clusters of officers stood outside each metro exit.
Throughout the day AFP journalists saw officers detaining four people, later releasing one, with a reporter counting 12 police cars within 100 metres along Wulumuqi street in Shanghai, the focal point of Sunday’s rally.
And with police cars, foot patrols, a
network of surveillance cameras, and aided by the icy wind, Beijing authorities also appeared Monday to have deterred fresh gatherings.
Elsewhere, some rallies did go ahead. In semi-autonomous Hong Kong, where mass democracy protests erupted in 2019, dozens gathered at the Chinese University to mourn the victims of the Urumqi fire.
And in Hangzhou, just over 170 kilometres southwest of Shanghai, there
was strict security and sporadic protests in the city’s downtown, footage circulating on social media and partly geolocated by AFP showed.
China’s leaders have remained steadfast in their commitment to zeroCovid, which compels local authorities to impose snap lockdowns, quarantine orders, and limit freedom of movement in response to minor outbreaks.
But there are signs that some local authorities are taking steps to relax some of the rules and dampen the unrest. In Urumqi, an official said yesterday the city would give a one-off payment of 300 yuan (about 1,400 baht) to each person with “low income or no income”, and announced a five-month rent exemption for some households.
In Beijing, state media reported authorities had apologised for delayed deliveries to residents as online shopping demand surges due to repeated lockdowns. The city has also banned “the practice of barring building gates in closed-off residential compounds”, Xinhua said on Sunday.
And an influential state media commentator suggested that Covid controls could be further relaxed — while insisting the public “will soon calm down”.
“I can give an absolute prediction: China will not become chaotic or out of control,” Hu Xijian, a columnist with the state-run Global Times said on Twitter, which is banned in China.