China has always been known for a strong authoritarian governance style. For the most part, the people have always knuckled under. However, now there has been an anomaly. Since 24th November, there have been intense protests all over China. The initial cause of these protests was the frustration over the outdated covid-19 measures. However, the anger has since spiraled, and they now target a bigger issue - censorship and authoritarian governance. Some see this as the end to Xi's dynasty while others believe that we are about to witness an atrocity on the level of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. In today's edition of DND, we will be exploring the origin of these protests in China, the concept of their "dynamic zero covid policy", their stance on vaccination, break down the "white paper movement" and finally, the repercussions this will have on the country as well as what we can expect to see moving forward.
China's Dynamic Zero COVID policy. What exactly is it? Contrary to popular belief, it is not about having zero cases all the time but rather that swift and dynamic action is taken the moment such cases surface. It works through two prongs - Prevention and Containment. Prevention is achieved through initiatives like their food testing regime (Where they believe that the coronavirus is trapped in the food). Containment is achieved through regular PCR tests. Citizens have to undergo PCR tests once every 3 days and their results are then logged in a government database. Suspected cases are then isolated and quarantined, cutting off the transmission chain. Entire buildings, communities and even states could be locked down. A single case is enough to lock down an entire building.
Moreover, there has also been a COVID-19 health profile created for all citizens. The profile has two statuses "Normal" and "Abnormal". In order to maintain the "Normal" profile with continual negative results, no contact with infected people and no visits to risky places (Places that infected people passed through). The problem begins the moment your profile becomes "Abnormal". You will be barred access to public venues and public transport. Officers will literally be sent to attach an electronic seal onto your door.
So, the question is for all of this effort, does it work? China certainly is arguing that it does. They believe that despite the fact that the variants have decreased in their damaging ability, their infectiousness has increased and if a large group of people are all infected in the same period this will cause a strain on their medical resources. However, the truth is, Chinese officials have already come to the same realisation that the rest of the world has. That this is an endemic virus. The problem here is a matter of ego. China had proudly unveiled its zero-covid policy at the start, and it had worked resulting in less deaths in the country compared to the other western countries. This resulted in them gaining international praise. However, that was back when the vaccines had not been invented yet or were still in the rollout phase. As covered in the previous article on COVID, the lockdowns and quarantines were only meant to be a temporary stalling measure until the vaccines came. China kept clinging onto the fact that they would be the country that achieved their zero covid goals. Now, however, they are in too deep to admit that they were wrong about their method of tackling the virus. Given the top-down approach of the country, the rest of the officials are merely scrambling to meet the expectations as they fear what will happen to them if they do not toe the party line.
Since no one dared to question the commands that came from their supreme leader, the situation simply just got worse and worse, building frustration and anger within the hearts of the Chinese Citizens. However, given the strict censorship and pro-government alignment in China, this prevented the outrage from being released and it just kept stewing. This was until the Urumqi Fire. This fire was merely the trigger.
On 24 November 2022, a fire broke out in a residential high-rise building in Urumqi in the Xinjiang Region of China. There were 10 people who were killed in the fire and nine others who were injured (Although the accuracy of these numbers are unknown). What made citizens so angry was the fact that the deaths could have been avoided. It was China's Strict COVID 19 measures that hindered the firefighting and rescue operations. At the time, the building was under a lockdown. There were fences, barriers and bollards that were erected by the officials which were unable to be removed during the emergency. Hence, this resulted in the fire engines being unable to get close to the buildings such that the water fired from the fire engine was only able to barely graze the building. On top of that, as the doors to the apartments and the other areas of the building were all electronically sealed, the residents could not even self-evacuate themselves even as the fire grew and the smoke spread.
After this incident, there were vigils across the country to mourn the loss for those who died during the fire. These vigils gave a place for people who were of similar sentiment and feelings to group together. At the vigils, there was white paper everywhere. It is that white paper that has now become ubiquitous in Chinese protests. The white paper is meant to be a commentary on China's harsh censorship. If they were to have written something unsupported by the government, it would merely be erased or covered up during the media coverage. By putting up a white paper, they are bringing across the sentiment that "I know that you know what I am going to say but I cannot say it because if I do it will just be censored or written over.” Essentially, a giant middle finger to China’s aggressive censorship protocols.
White paper has actually been used in many protests and demonstrations across the world like in Hong Kong 2020 when the National Security Law was passed or by the anti-war activists in Russia and Belarus at the start of the year. As of last Sunday, there were already mass protests in universities and the streets of states like Nanjing, Xinjiang, and Beijing. Amidst the calls to bring an end to the lockdown and steer the country to normalcy, there were also those who called for Premier Xi Jinping to resign as well as rallied against the removal of the term limits for their leaders. There were even some calls for the removal of the entire Chinese Communist Party asking for a democracy instead. Of course, by Monday morning the police had successfully dispelled and broken up all of the rallies, but the damage had already been done.
Up till now, given the fact that China was a country where political dissent is rare, there were many people that were surprised by the mass protests that took place. When they saw that there were people who held the same viewpoints and felt the same way, they were emboldened as they were no longer alone. They were part of a larger group. Hence, resulting in the surge in mass protests as well as the calls for Xi to resign or for the communist party to end its reign (In any other scenario, this would have been deemed treasonous)
Now, you might be wondering what is going to happen? First up, the chances of Xi stepping down is next to zero and the chances of the communist party releasing its grip on China is about a billion times smaller than that. However, this does not mean that nothing will happen. As of this week, the Chinese government has announced that they will be easing their COVID measures. They have begun closing down their public testing booths and a negative covid 19 result is no longer needed to use public transportation or to visit the pharmacists. On top of that, China has also shifted its approach and is focusing on making sure that its elderly is properly vaccinated. While authorities relax some of the COVID-19 restrictions, they are also detaining people who participated in recent protests. Police in cities such as Shanghai are checking commuters’ phones for apps or virtual private network software that the protesters used to communicate, according to protesters and social media posts. On Saturday, police kept up a heavy presence on streets close to Shanghai’s Wulumuqi Road, named after Urumqi and the site of a vigil for the victims of the fire that turned into protests last weekend.
This, to be honest, was a smart way to handle the situation. A politician is nothing without his people. There is no point fighting a war of attrition with your own people. China recognised that they needed to calm the protestors before things got out of hand. Hence, they began to relent on their zero-covid initiative as a concession so as to cut off the reason that most protests would have for rallying against them. The goal was never to appease the hardcore protest leaders but rather to reduce the incentive for the normal everyday citizen to join such campaigns. At the same time, to make sure that the protesters do not get confident, they sent the police after them to detain and capture those who played larger roles in the protests. Hence, both appeasing the general public while making sure that there is still political stability.
However, the larger topic that this issue in China is about is regarding the power of the people. A cringy term sure but this issue in China underscores how even an authoritarian government like China is unable to resist the pressure of the people. As a leader of a country, your strength will always be dependent on the number of people that follow them. Not to mention the fact that political conflicts within the country run the risk of destabilizing the country and escalating into a civil war. A country already has so many external threats that if there is no internal stability there will be no way for the country to improve. This is the same realisation that Iran had which resulted in the disbanding of the morality police. The problem here is that the Iranian government waited too long, and this resulted in the protest movement gaining proper form and momentum. However, in all this, the key thing to realise here is that it must be done in a way that ensures that they do not lose face. This is particularly important to China as it is a burgeoning superpower and thus does not want to be seen as a weak or to lose its prestige.
At the end of the day, this incident in China speaks to an important issue about effecting change within your country. There is no question that the more people that rally around the cause, the stronger the message would be but, unless you want to burn your country to the ground, the means and way of communication is also important. There is rarely a complete concession given by either side. Hence, there needs to be understanding on both sides that they will never be able to achieve entirely what they want. Most importantly, there must be a tangible realistic outcome that they would like to achieve through their campaigning. To put it simply, for a healthy outcome, as soon as their movement gains momentum they should just discuss and not debate.
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