This ‘written’ silence of Chinese protesters makes such a fuss that it gathers global interest
By Athena Papakosta
On Sunday afternoon in China’s financial capital, Shanghai, citizens arrived at the site of the protests “armed”. Wearing their protective masks, they raised white sticky paper in the air with their hands.
A similar picture was recorded in Beijing. “The white paper it represents everything we want but can’t say,” a 26-year-old protester from the Chinese capital told Reuters, answering the question of what an A4 sticker symbolized that has now become a symbol of protests in the country.
This “written” silence of the Chinese protesters makes such a fuss that it gathers global interest, while in our country the ongoing demonstrations in the major Chinese metropolises “play” first issue.
So what do the Chinese want? If we were to answer with a single sentence then it would be: Their lives back. If our minds manage to realize it, these people have been living for three years with consecutive and extremely strict long-term lockdowns. These forced them to learn to live locked – literally by the Chinese authorities – within the four walls of their homes. Their present is now the past and they are reclaiming their future as the Chinese government is keeping its fingers crossed on when the zero tolerance policy it insists on will finally come to an end.
At the moment a few hundred citizens – mostly young people – are spontaneously taking to the streets to protest. The protests are not yet massively organized and the Chinese government is trying to win this “race” against time. The first step is to limit the spread of information through the Internet.
The already scrutinized control of posts on Chinese social media is further strengthened as on it users do not hesitate to post a white sticker as a message of solidarity and resistance. “If you are afraid of a white sheet of paper, then you are weak,” wrote a Chinese citizen a few hours ago…
In the second year, repression measures are strengthened. Shanghai, Beijing and even Hong Kong are entering a strict police cordon to avoid mass demonstrations and even the scenario of a repeat of Tien An Men.
It is the first time in the annals of Xi’s presidency that the country has been rocked by protests challenging Chinese authorities and the country’s youth calling for political change.
The Chinese leader just sealed his third term at the head of the Chinese Communist Party, becoming the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong. Already on the streets among the slogans against the lockdowns and the corona virus detection tests, slogans such as “down with the dictatorship”, “we demand elections” and “Xi Jinping resign” can be heard.
Such calls for the resignation of Xi Jinping and the downfall of the Chinese Communist Party, which has ruled the country for 73 years, give rise to fears that they may be characterized as rebellion, which, in fact, is punishable by imprisonment. However, Chinese citizens have no more patience.
The death of 10 people after a fire in northwest China’s Xinjiang province was the spark that ignited the fire. Fire engines could not reach the spot due to the lockdown measures and a new tragedy was about to be added to the long list of previous ones. Among them a 4-month-old baby who died helpless in a quarantined hotel and a mother who ended her life by skydiving with her daughter 12 floors down only to discover that she could not get out of the block of flats as they were locked down due to the measures against the pandemic.
The Xi government did not care much about popular discontent and thus underestimated it. We all remember what happened in Shanghai last spring with citizens shouting and banging pots in the night while trapped in the… safety of their homes. The strict lockdown has brought food shortages and economic pain, but the secretary of the city’s municipal council has been rewarded after he ascended to the No. 2 position in the Chinese Communist Party leadership in October.
It is “unthinkable” for Xi to back down, analysts say, noting that the Chinese Communist Party is adept at handling protests while China remains the only major country still, with measures in place, to try to stop the spread of the virus. which was first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan in 2019.
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With a wealth of experience honed over 4+ years in journalism, I bring a seasoned voice to the world of news. Currently, I work as a freelance writer and editor, always seeking new opportunities to tell compelling stories in the field of world news.
