Demonstrations against the so-called Covid Zero policy of the Chinese government have gained strength in recent days in different cities across the country. This Sunday (27), acts were recorded in the center of Beijing, the first major mobilizations in the streets of the capital.
Other manifestations, however, were already coming taking place in the city. For example, at Tsinghua University, one of the most important in the country and where the current Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, studied.
Images published on social networks showed demonstrators on the banks of the Liangma River, in the populous district from Chaoyang, also in the Chinese capital. They sang and shouted demands such as “an end to confinements”. Many of them held blank sheets of paper..
A BBC report also noted that thousands of people took to the streets of Shanghai to protest against the restrictions of the Chinese government’s policy to combat Covid-19.
The BBC witnessed at least three people being taken away in police cars.
Protests intensified after building fire
Demonstrations over the weekend intensified after the case of fire in a residential area in the city of Urumqi, which occurred on Thursday (24). Ten people died and nine were injured, according to the state agency Xinhua.
Comments on Chinese and international social media pointed out that the extensive lockdowns against Covid-19 made rescue operations and care for victims difficult.
In the streets, residents call for the suspension of the Covid Zero policy. Also according to BBC, in Shanghai demonstrators chanted slogans such as “Xi Jinping, resign” and “Communist Party, resign”.
In an interview published On the website of the British broadcaster, Ho-fung Ho, professor of Sociology at John Hopkins University, in the United States, said that the protests “represent the first serious test of the autocratic government” of Xi Jinping.