After a deadly fire, people riot against China’s COVID policies

The fire started with a faulty shoe in a bedroom on the 15th floor of an apartment building in far western China.

It took firefighters three hours to put it out – too long to avoid at least 10 deaths – and what could have been an isolated incident turned into a tragedy and a political headache for local leaders.

Many people suspected the COVID shutdown had hindered rescue efforts or had trapped the victims inside their homes, and while officials denied it happened, angry comments flooded social networks and residents took to the streets of the city where the fire broke out.

Now the incident in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang region, has unleashed the most provocative outburst of public anger against the ruling Communist Party in years.

This weekend, in cities across China, thousands of people gathered with candles and flowers to mourn the victims of the fire.

On campuses, students held vigils, many holding up blank pieces of paper in protest.

In Shanghai, some residents even invited the Communist Party and its leader, Xi Jinping, to resign, a rare and daring challenge.

The assault has created fresh pressure on Xi just a month after he secured a third term as party boss, sealing his status as China’s most dominant leader in decades.

The biggest source of anger is yours “Zero COVID” strategy.which seeks to eliminate infections with lockdowns, quarantines and mass tests.

This strategy has caused coronavirus deaths to be much lower than in other places, but even so paralyzed many Chinese cities, has disrupted the lives and movements of hundreds of millions of people and forced the closure of many small businesses.

Protests are relatively rare in China.

Especially under Xi, the party has eliminated most means of organizing the population to face the government.

Dissidents have been jailed, social media is heavily censored and independent human rights groups have been banned.

The protests that erupt in cities and towns are often by workers, farmers or other locals offended by job losses, land disputes, pollution or other issues that often remain Contents.

But the pervasiveness of COVID restrictions in China has created a hotbed of anger that transcends class and geography.

Immigrant workers grappling with food shortages and unemployment during weekday shutdowns, college students stranded on campus, urban professionals chafing at travel restrictions…the roots of their frustrations are the same.

The Communist Party’s greatest fear would materialize if these similar grievances lead protesters from different backgrounds to cooperate, so 1989 Echo, when students, workers, small businesses and residents found common cause in protests demanding democratic change that took over Tiananmen Square.

It hasn’t happened so far.

“COVID Zero has had an unintended consequence, which is putting a large number of people in the same situation,” said Yasheng Huang, a professor at MIT’s Sloan School of Management who runs its China Lab.

“This is a turning point. The anger has been bottled up for a while, but I think the 20th Congress raised the expectation that it would subside,” he said, referring to the party’s leadership reshuffle in October.

“When that didn’t happen, frustration erupted quickly.”

In Beijing on Monday morning, Chinese leaders, including Xi, have yet to comment on the weekend melee, and party-run media outlets have also remained silent.

Travel limits and government restrictions on foreign journalists make reporting the protests difficult.

The New York Times, with two mainland China-based reporters, followed the protests online and reported the demonstrations through telephone interviews, verified video, and sources inside China who shared their recordings of the events.

The deaths from Thursday’s fire in Urumqi and questions about whether the victims were locked up in their burning building resonated widely in China.

After nearly three years of pandemic-related restrictions, many Chinese are reporting being quarantined at home, sometimes with the wire gates either welded or with blocked emergency exits.

That shared experience seemed to fuel collective suspicion and anger about the deaths.

“Yesterday I saw the tragedy of the Urumqi fire and I couldn’t stop crying, and then I thought about the time when Shanghai was closed this year,” said Kira Yao, sales manager in Shanghai, who said she having participated in the candlelight vigil for the victims of the Urumqi fire.

“Then we shouted ‘No to nucleic acid testing; we want freedom’ and ‘No to health codes,'” he said.

“I felt like I could finally say what I wanted to say.”

Although many protesters limited their calls to slack of COVID restrictions, some have taken the opportunity to raise broader political demandslinking the draconian scope of “zero COVID” to the country’s authoritarian system.

On Sunday, hundreds of students gathered at the Tsinghua University campus in northwest Beijing, where they were barred from leaving for weeks due to COVID-related restrictions.

“Democracy and the rule of law,” chanted the crowd.

“Freedom of expression”.

Later, Tsinghua University announced it would offer students free air and train travel home this week, ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday.

Near the Liangma River in Beijing on Sunday night, at least 100 people gathered to light candles and hold up blank sheets of paper, an implicit protest against censorship.

The crowd cheered the protesters in Shanghai for encouragement.

Others stood on a bridge, also holding blank sheets of paper, while passing drivers honked their horns.

“We don’t want lies, we want respect!” a woman yelled.

“We don’t want a leader; we want a vote,” he said, referring to Xi.

Other images showed hundreds of people marching down a nearby street, chanting what they wanted freedomnot constant COVID tests.

In Wuhan, the central Chinese city where the pandemic originated in late 2019, hundreds of people walked the streets, some breaking down barriers that had been erected to enforce neighborhood lockdowns.

The protests followed hopes that COVID restrictions would be gradually eased after Beijing officials this month released a 20-point plan to limit the scope of anti-pandemic measures.

Based on that plan, people expected local governments to cut back on contact tracing and mass quarantines, but as COVID cases surge, officials have revived the same tactics sweep.

Xi doesn’t have an easy answer to the widespread anger.

Censors were quick to remove photos and videos of the protests.

If Xi cracks down on protesters, he might rage in addition to the public, also putting the formidable Chinese security apparatus to the test.

If you suddenly lift too many restrictions, you risk damaging your image of impervious authority that you’ve built in part thanks to your success in fighting COVID.

The resulting increase in life-threatening infections among the most vulnerable could also become another source of discontent.

“The immediate challenge is whether and how they will continue with ‘COVID zero’ when there is so much frustration.

This is a decision you have to make in the next, say, 48 or 72 hours,” Minxin Pei, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College who studies Chinese politics, said in an interview.

“He can arrest people and put them in prison, but the virus will still be there. There are simply no easy answers for him, only hard decisions.”

The political stakes became clear on Saturday night in Shanghai as what began as a vigil turned into a street protest.

Dozens of people had gathered on Urumqi Street, named after the city in Xinjiang, to mourn the victims of the fire.

As the crowds swelled to the hundreds, chanting broke out, with people calling for COVID controls to be relaxed.

“We want freedom,” they said. A small number of them openly denounced Xi and the Communist Party.

“Xi Jinping!” a man in the crowd shouted repeatedly.

“Back!” some sang in response.