Widespread protests in China put Xi’s reputation at stake

Beijing [China], December 2 (ANI): The ongoing protests in China against the stringent covid-19 policy has put Xi’s leadership in the doldrums as excessive discontent and frustration among people in China has crossed all limits.
In China, strict COVID regulations have resulted in a negative impact on millions of people’s lives. The demands now go beyond simply easing the restrictions to include free speech, and respect for human rights, according to Global Strat View.
From Shanghai to Beijing, Guangzhou to Chengdu, the protests have grown massive and with thousands of people gathering on the streets and university campuses of major cities, demanding to put a period to the strict zero COVID policy.
For Xi’s reputation, none of these developments bode well. These protests are detracting from his and the CCP’s efforts to portray China’s advancements under Xi’s leadership at a time when the Chinese leader has just taken over as CCP’s chairman for the third term.
Although China has in the past effectively put an end to peaceful rallies, a crackdown on current protesters will rapidly bring back memories of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protest crackdown. As a result, these protests will have a considerably greater overall effect in the long run, the Global Strat View reported.
The ongoing demonstrations are one of the largest uprisings the communist country has seen since the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement. Additionally, the response intended to disperse the ongoing protesters is probably going to make matters worse.
China is in the middle of some of its fiercest protests against stringent Covid curbs in the country, with many memes, chants and catchphrases going viral.
Several videos circulating on social media have shown crowds chanting the slogan “Communist Party step down, Down with Xi Jinping” in unison over a deadly fire in Urumqi, the capital of China’s Xinjiang region that has unleashed excessive public outrage, Inside Over reported.
Large-scale protests in China, especially in Xinjiang, are rare, given the extensive blanket of high-tech surveillance measures authorities have imposed on the region to quell what the government sees as separatist or extremist tendencies.
Thousands of protesters took to the streets of Shanghai, where people were being bundled into police cars. Students have also demonstrated at universities in Beijing and Nanjing.
Shanghai’s 25 million people were put under lockdown for two months earlier this year, an ordeal that provoked anger and protest. Chinese authorities have since then sought to be more targeted in their Covid-19 curbs. But that effort has been challenged by a surge in infections as China faces its first winter with the highly transmissible Omicron variant.
According to reports, civilian protests are on the rise in the country since a fire in the city of Urumqi led to the deaths of 10 people. Locals and onlookers blamed the incident on lockdown restrictions as they hindered the rescue process. (ANI)