Chinese police out in force in attempt to deter Covid lockdown protests

Dozens of police cars lined the streets around a central Beijing subway station and patrolled surrounding blocks on Monday evening, while uniformed and plain-clothed officers stood guard at station exits and stopped passersby for questioning. Hours after the scheduled start of a protest organised via encrypted messaging apps there were few apparent participants.

Some small actions were held, according to observers sharing videos and photos online. According to a Twitter account that has been sharing protest material in recent days, a small group of people holding up blank sheets of paper in Kunming were later taken away by police.

Since Friday, a wave of protests has spread across multiple cities, prompted by the death of 10 people in a building fire in Urumqi in Xinjiang. Much of the region had been under lockdown for more than three months, and people blamed the lockdown for the deaths.

Gatherings held to protest or to mourn the victims were held in Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu and other major Chinese cities on Saturday and Sunday, as well as dozens of university campuses, with some police clashes and detentions in Shanghai.

Protesters demanded an end to lockdowns, while some groups decried censorship and called for democracy and an end to the rule of Xi Jinping. Most protests were peaceful. There were some clashes with police in Shanghai, and protesters in Wuhan pushed over pandemic barriers.

Blaming foreign influence for local dissent is common from the Beijing authorities. At one protest on Sunday, protesters appeared to make reference to it.

Online discussion of the protests has been strictly censored, particularly on social media platforms such as Weibo, but information and evidence of the protests are still being shared on more private channels such as WeChat, also monitored by the state.

On Twitter, which is banned in China but has been a key site of reposted protest material, Chinese-language hashtags are being flooded by suspected state actors with pornographic and escort service posts.

Chinese state media has not mentioned the protests.

Additional research by Chi Hui Lin