The Communist Party is losing the Chinese People’s Code List

The scenes of the last few days in China have been astounding.

Last weekend, in several cities in the country, from the cosmopolitan carry off far xinjiangordinary people took to the streets to denounce the government’s stifling Covid-19 repression policy and, in some cases, to demand democracy and freedom of expression.

The sudden publication of almost three years of pent up frustration by excessive covid measures – that have upended lives, separated families and crippled the economy – is the biggest anti-government outburst of pro-democratic demonstrations of 1989 in the square of tiananmen. Once again, the odds are stacked against the protesters. the Chinese Communist Partywhich completely controls the country, has moved quickly to suppress them.

But the Chinese people have reached a turning point. the brutal repression of 1989 left the Chinese depoliticized and intimidated into the social contract that has governed life for three decades: leave politics to the party in exchange for a few Economic freedom. A new generation, pushed to the brink by the government’s obsession with “zero,” has discovered his voice.

It is ironic how it has come to this. After the riots of the Arab Spring 2011Preventing pro-democracy protests in China became one of the president’s top priorities. Xi Jinping. Chinese civil society was wiped out and he has bolstered his power by purging the party of potential political rivals and changing the Constitution of China in 2018 abolish presidential term limits, allowing him to stay in power indefinitely. The inflexible approach to the pandemic is just an extension of that, another tool to prevent an open society from developing. After a decade of enormous efforts by the party to inoculate China against revolution, it has brought one on itself through its “zero covid” policy.

The seed was sown this year with the blockade of two months of carry off in April and May, imposed to stop the rapid spread of the Omicron variant. All of China watched as the city’s 25 million inhabitants suffered immense psychological and economic pain. He inadvertently drew people back into political life. Locked at home or separated from their families or worried about food, they were forced to reassess whether the social contract was still tenable. The collective trauma of Shanghai is unlike anything people have endured since China began to open up four decades ago, laying the groundwork for demos since last week.

The match added an insult to Shanghai’s injury. After the lockdown ended, no political response or psychological comfort was offered. On the contrary, in the Congress of the Communist Party held in October, former Shanghai leader Li Qiang was rewarded for his strict compliance with the blockade with promotion to the No. 2 government post. He is prepared to become the next. chinese prime minister in March. This is typical of the last three years of Covid checks; the leaders did not show even a modicum of ethics or responsibility, despite the pain and losses suffered by ordinary people.

At the congress, Xi tightened his grip on what can now only be called a totalitarian regime, securing another five-year term and filling the upper echelons of the party with his loyalists. And the Chinese leadership declared once again that the Covid policy was a success that had the full support of the population and would continue.

This was too much for the frustrated Chinese people, and when the World Cup football match in Qatar kicked off this month, images of thousands of fans around the world enjoying the spectacle without masks lifted the veil from Chinese eyes. After being force-fed for nearly three years with propaganda that the party had saved China from the virus, while the US and other democracies had botched the response, people saw the truth: the world had moved on from the pandemicgoing back to normal life.

The surreal suffering of ordinary Chinese continued: there were viral reports of people dying after the covid restrictions prevented them from receiving timely medical care, workers clashed with security personnel over delayed premiums and their living conditions at a central Chinese factory that makes iPhonesand the inhabitants of a southern city came out of their confinement to protest the food shortage.

The straw that broke the camel’s back came on November 24, when a fire in a building of apartments of urumqithe capital of xinjiang, caused the death of at least 10 people. Many Chinese immediately suspected that the Covid measures had obstructed firefighters’ access, though officials denied this, and a wave of empathy and frustration swept across the country. The Chinese often admit to the coldness and selfishness of our society, but suddenly found common cause in their fear and frustration.

I, too, have endured the indignities of Zero-Covid: lining up with others like cattle for daily tests; obsessed with my phone due to the mandatory health code, which dictates whether you can move around in public; And I wonder if tomorrow they’ll lock me up again for weeks. Along with millions of others, I sat at home in Beijing glued to my phone late into the night last weekend, when images began circulating on Chinese social media showing young protesters holding blank sheets of paper. , an expression of silent defiance that has become the symbol of this movement.

For anyone who has lived in China for the past three years, it was cathartic; our shared fear had become our shared power. The next day, protesters poured out of gated communities and college campuses to mourn the Ürümqi victimsdemand the end of Covid zero and claim human rights and freedom.

Maybe the COVID-19 it is still deadly for some and no worse than the flu for others, but what is now clear is that China’s communist leaders face a great political crisis of his own making. The social and economic consequences of Mr. Xi’s inflexible approach have exposed the rigidity of the communist system and the bankruptcy of his ideology and discourse, and have revealed the true extent of the public opposition, which was conveniently absent from the political stage of the party congress. The protests in China are a powerful demonstration of the enormous distance that exists between Mr Xi’s government and the people.

This is a bigger problem for the party than the 1989 movement, which was largely confined to Beijing university students. Recent demonstrations have brought together workers, university students and the middle class in a very spontaneous national expression of desperation in a government without checks and balances.

Inevitably, you will be faced with the kind of severe repression which was used for silence pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong, as well as the tightening of restrictions due to the pandemic. But this will be extremely difficult for the government to sustain indefinitely. Covid politics has exposed the inherent weakness of the systemand he is losing the two most critical bases of political support in China: university students and the middle class.

When the protesters took to the streets, they evoked the moment when Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon. The die is cast. The future of China belongs to those people in the streets.

Keep reading:

Protests against Xi Jinping spread to all of China

“Xi Jinping, resign!”: Protests grow in Shanghai and Beijing against “COVID zero” restrictions

China: At least 10 people died trapped in their homes during a fire due to “Zero COVID” policies