Mass protests in China: whether to wait for a forceful suppression scenario

For several consecutive years, mass protests have continued in China due to the strict policy to combat COVID. Shanghai has now come to the fore, where hundreds of demonstrators are clashing directly with the police. In addition, the BBC broadcaster reported the detention of its journalist. He was covering a protest in the city, but he was brutally detained by the police. A few hours later he was released. We understand what the prospects for protests in China may be and how the current anger of citizens may affect the political life of the Celestial Empire.

“The BBC is extremely concerned about the treatment of our journalist Ed Lawrence, who was arrested while covering the protests in Shanghai,” the statement of the British broadcaster circulated around the world media on the night of Monday 28 November.

According to the company, “he was held for several hours before he was released. During the arrest, the policemen beat and kicked him. This happened when he was working as an accredited journalist.”

Later, Lawrence himself confirmed this, adding that at least one other local resident was arrested because of an attempt to prevent the police from beating him. The main evidence base of Chinese protests – emerging footage and videos from the scene on social networks – also confirmed the reality of what happened.

The BBC said it had not received a credible explanation for Lawrence’s detention, noting that the broadcaster never received “an apology from the Chinese authorities.” Everything was limited only to the statement of officials, who backed up their actions with “concern” about the journalist. According to the BBC, this was done so that the journalist “did not catch COVID while in the crowd.”

Recall that protests in China against the “zero COVID” policy continue for several days in different cities of the country. The demonstrations have already been dubbed “unprecedented” because the PRC has not faced such mass outrage for many years. Among other things, disgruntled citizens are increasingly expressing anti-government slogans and even dare to criticize Xi Jinping.

But if a little earlier cases of speeches were isolated, then over the past three days they have acquired a more serious scale. The boiling point was the fire that occurred in a residential complex in Urumqi district in Xinjiang, which killed 10 people. People unanimously blamed the tragedy on measures to block the building due to a detected case of coronavirus infection. This, according to the citizens, did not allow the “hostages” to get out of the fiery captivity in time.

After that, mass protests began to take place in the cities of Beijing, Chengdu, Wuhan, Guangzhou and Shanghai. Participants claimed that “the people were not violent, but the police arrested them for nothing.” But this also cannot be called the absolute truth. Some demonstrators not only stood with white sheets (one of the symbols of the current Chinese protests), but also broke metal barricades, demolished tents at testing sites, and smashed cabins. There is at least a violation of public order.

What will this lead to? Mindful of the rarity of such actions, only the events on Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 1989 come to mind. Recall that at that time there were several protests that lasted from April to June. Students were the main participants. Now students have also become a powerful driving force. The reason for the protests at the time were various reasons: from dissatisfaction with the decisions of the current government to economic reasons, many also advocated democratic reforms, which were so lacking in China at that time.

Now the situation seems to be the same. The main impetus was given by the “zero COVID” policy, but there are deeper reasons behind it. Calls for the resignation of the authorities did not appear out of nowhere, as well as fear for the domestic economy and their own business.

In 1989, the suppression of protests by the People’s Liberation Army of China put an end to the protests. Firearms and armored vehicles were also used. Could it all end now? Or is it an unlikely, far-fetched prospect?

The Chinese Communist Party will remain in power. Theoretically, gradually, but very carefully and slowly, anti-COVID restrictions will be lifted,” Sergey Lukonin, head of the economic and political sector of China, IMEMO RAS, comments on the development of the situation. – But they will do it in such a way that the actions do not cast a shadow on the party. The situation is nothing like the protests in Tiananmen Square. These are two different events, completely different reasons. One has nothing to do with the other. Tiananmen is purely politics, reforms. There were both satisfied and dissatisfied, and those who said “let’s go faster!”, And those who said “let’s go slower!”. Here it is purely dissatisfaction with tough anti-pandemic restrictions.

– There is also a fear of people for the prospects of the local economy. Did all the events really hit this area so seriously or did it adapt to the prevailing realities?

– The economy did not adjust and really suffered. But she did not begin to suffer yesterday. China as a whole is weathering the pandemic better than any other country. China still has positive GDP growth rates. The results for one quarter in 2020 were negative (in the first quarter of 2020, China’s GDP fell by 6.8% for the first time in 28 years. – “MK”). Yes, China’s average GDP growth is naturally declining, but there are fundamental reasons. The Chinese economy itself is growing on a scale, and it is clear that in this case, the growth rate tends to fall. To some extent, the “zero tolerance” policy for COVID made a significant contribution, there were still problems in the real estate market, and also the fact that the government, with some delay, expanded the infrastructure construction program, due to which, as a rule, the average high growth rates of Chinese GDP were maintained …

Moving away from the economic aspect of the situation and looking at the practical turn of events in China, we can note one more feature. Active coverage of the demonstrations is carried out mainly by the Western media. Chinese publications prefer not to talk about this at all or limit themselves to only small informational notes. On the one hand, this may suggest that the West is traditionally accelerating the situation to a “planetary” scale. On the other hand, you can’t come up with this from scratch. So where is the truth?

Sergey Lukonin sees this situation this way:

– It cannot be said unequivocally that this is a dispersal of the situation by the West. The Chinese media understand why they are silent. There is censorship in the country, and quite strict. It is clear that they will not write anything about mass protests. But I must say that the scale of the protests is not even a percentage of the entire population, it is tenths of a percent. That is, it is very small. Why is the Western media promoting this? They have this style of work. We need an informational reason, and secondly, we need to criticize China. They will not write that everything is wonderful in China …