Freedom vs satiety. How will mass protests in China end?

Ivan Zubov

As you know, large-scale protests against covid lokduans began in China last weekend. The reason for them was the death of at least 10 people as a result of a fire in a residential building in Urumqi. Local residents believe that the dead were not able to leave the building in time due to the doors being closed as part of the anti-COVID restrictions. Demonstrations are also taking place at a number of universities and campuses across the country. Some analysts have already compared it to the events in Tiananmen Square in June 1989, when the Chinese authorities brutally cracked down on protesting students by sending tanks at them. They write that these are the first all-China protests for the entire existence of the PRC, covering at least ten cities, including the three largest ones, Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. The demonstrators are even calling for Xi Jinping to step down.

The US Embassy in Beijing has already urged all US citizens in China to have a 14-day supply of medicines, bottled water and food for themselves and all family members.

The report indicates that the People's Republic of China authorities have expanded restrictions on COVID-19 prevention and control measures during outbreaks. These measures may include community quarantine, mass testing, lockdowns, disruptions to transport, and possible separation of families.

Analysts are actively discussing these events. Thus, political scientist Ostap Karmody believes that the current protests have the potential to develop into anti-communist riots:

“In all the years since 1989, censorship in China has been aimed not so much at shutting up voices that run counter to the party line - this is often overlooked by the censors - but at the most severe suppression of any attempts at informal unification of citizens. Any attempt to call a non-state rally, even if it was a rally in support of state policy, was instantly crushed. As you can see, this time it didn't work. They write that in one of the cities a mass rally self-organized around a single student who stood in front of the regional committee and shouted “Democracy! Constitutional state! Reintegration into the global community!”

Analyst Alexander Baunov also notes the growth of protest moods in Chinese society:

“It is interesting that this type of protest is the same one that the majority of educated citizens did not sympathize with for another year, not to mention two years ago – against covid restrictions, but here they sympathize…”

Political scientist Nikolai Vavilov believes that the Chinese authorities themselves provoked these events:

“What is happening in China now is, on the one hand, an obviously controlled network-centric protest with obvious political goals, but on the other hand, it did not arise from nowhere - almost three years of absolutely irrational isolation notably increased the degree of irritation...”

Political scientist Vadim Goncharov generally saw in these protests signs of a global crisis of world autocracies:

“So the protests started in China. Iran is on fire for the third month. Russia hangs on a thin thread of the state wisdom of a certain official from the Presidential Administration. What if the three great Eurasian autocracies collapse at the same time?”

But the analysts of the channel Chinese Threat are sure that nothing threatens the Chinese authorities:

“In fact, no one in China wants the departure of the Communist Party and Xi, under which the people certainly live better than under Mao. Yes, they want a little more freedom, but a full stomach outweighs at the moment ... "