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Patience running out in China over COVID lockdowns – and it poses major challenge to ruling Communist party | World News


To see people protesting on the streets in China is extremely rare.

To have the Demonstration accompanied by chants of “Down with the CPP” and “Down with President Xi” were almost unheard of.

But that’s exactly what happened on the streets of Shanghai on Saturday night, a gathering that started with only about 100 people or more as news spread, videos went viral on social media. China before the censors rushed to take them down.

The challenge to the ruling CPP feels crucial and it’s not just the boldness of the exhortations that should cause alarm.

The fact is that it is now one of many such protests breaking out.

In fact, it didn’t react to something local, but to something that happened thousands of miles away on the other side of the country.

And, perhaps most importantly, the fact that the underlying cause of the hysteria, the COVID-free agenda, is something every Chinese person experiences.

It is difficult to know exactly how this wave of anger will be quelled without some radical action.

The spark for the Shanghai protest was Fire in Urumqi City in Xinjianga province in the westernmost part of this vast country.

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Public anger pervades Shanghai

Ten people, including children, have died. It is alleged to be a Coronavirus Door locks prevent them from leaving the building and prevent firefighters from getting in quickly.

Xinjiang province has experienced an especially harsh blockade, lasting more than three months, leaving people in some places unable to leave their homes even to buy food.

Protests broke out there on Friday night.

This is particularly unusual as Xinjiang province is one of the most heavily monitored and strictly controlled places worldwide. China.

Read more:
China expands blockade as the number of COVID cases soars

Beijing ‘effectively locked down’

The The Uighur Muslim minority there have experienced years of brutal oppressionwith hundreds of thousands of people being held in camps.

It seems that the fire and ensuing outrage as well as the bravery of the people of Urumqi have shaken the country and created a kind of catalyst for smoldering frustration and fatigue.

In addition to Shanghai, there have been overnight protests at a university campus in Nanjing, Wuhan and Beijing, in recent days and weeks, people have taken to the streets and clashed with police in different places. place from Guangzhou to Zhengzhou.

There is a feeling that patience is running out.

The no-COVID policy, initially praised here for keeping people safe compared to the high death tolls in the US and Europe, is now disappointing.

Many Chinese people watched the opening World Cup televised matches and wondered why the rest of the world went on with their lives, gathering without masks in major stadiums, when they risked being locked indoors for short periods of time. or their business must close and become untradeable.

People’s lives here are still dominated by the need to be constantly checked, they cannot enter public places without it and at any time they can be stuck in a place related to one positive case.

Millions of people across many cities are still living in some form COVID-19 closing order.

There is a feeling the government is aware of the anger and the cost to the people.

Just a few weeks ago, it called COVID response is “optimized”, with more targeted measures, such as isolating only the building with the infected person, but not the entire area.

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But the country is facing a record number of COVID-19 infections and the underlying reality remains that the population has low levels of herd immunity and the hospital system is under-resourced and will quickly become overwhelmed.

However, make no mistake, the number of protests that broke out was unprecedented in years here, maybe even decades.

It poses a major challenge to the ruling Communist Party.

It is a regime that values ​​stability above all else and has maintained its legitimacy by ensuring that what the people do not have in terms of freedom of speech and democracy is valued more than what they have. financial security, social order, safety, and their ability to go on with their lives.

But there is a sense that the delicate balance is now under considerable strain.

It is not clear how the party will react.

It could shift to a heavily militarized approach if dissent continues to spread, though that brings its own risks.

Or it could choose to relax some COVID measures.

But that has the potential to open the door not only for the severe coronavirus outbreak and rising death toll, but also to encourage people that the protest can work in the future.

It is important not to take away here.

There are millions of people in China who fervently support the CCP and believe that no COVID is the right policy.

Its control over the state and society is also so deep and ingrained that any talk of this somehow subverting its rule is almost certainly nave.

But what is happening in China today is nonetheless extraordinary, a level of public anger and disagreement unseen in many years.

The current trajectory feels increasingly unmanageable.

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