How the Chinese are defying the restrictive measures of Xi Jinping’s government

The opponents of the Chinese restrictive measures to stop it COVID they resort to dating apps and social media platforms blocked on the mainland to escape censors, to spread their activism in a high-tech cat-and-mouse chase with the police.

Videos, photos and accounts of opponents of China’s tough measures have flooded heavily censored Chinese cyberspace after weekend protests with activists saving them on overseas platforms before censors could delete them, social media users say.

Protesters have taken to the streets of several Chinese cities for three days since last Friday in a sign of political unrest seen for the first time in President Xi Jinping’s decade in power.

Public anger over the strict zero-Covid policy is raging nearly three years after the coronavirus emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, but the spark that sparked the wave of protests was a deadly fire at an apartment building in the western Chinese city of Urumqi.

Authorities deny accusations made on social media that because of him lockdown the occupants were unable to escape the fire, but that did not stop protests on the streets of Urumqi, videos of which were posted on the social media apps Weibo and Douyin.

Censors quickly tried to delete them, but users downloaded and reposted them, not only on Chinese social media, but also on the banned China Twitter and Instagram.

Residents of other cities and students on university campuses across China then held rallies, which were filmed and posted online.

State media is not reporting on the protests and the government has said little about them.

The Foreign Ministry said today, after a reporter asked about the protests, that China is a country where the rule of law and all rights and freedoms of its citizens are protected, but that they should be exercised within the law.

A senior health official said public protests over the COVID containment measures stemmed from the overzealousness with which they were implemented, not the measures themselves.

Protesters communicating through the popular but highly censored app WeChat are keeping information to a minimum, according to online strategy discussions seen by the Reuters.

Locations of planned gatherings are given without explanation or communicated by map coordinates or a map faintly discernible in the background of a post.

Many people rely on virtual private network (VPN) software to bypass China’s firewall and use encrypted messaging apps.

Social media users say citizens have created groups on the Telegram messaging service to share information about their cities, while dating app messaging services are also being used in the hope they are subject to less scrutiny, according to a protester from the Beijing, which declined to be named, citing security reasons.

Protesters are also using platforms to share tips on what to do if caught, such as how to wipe data from a phone.

Police check phones for VPN and the app Telegramsay some social media users.

A Twitter account with nearly 700,000 followers called “Teacher Li is not your teacher” has garnered a lot of attention for posting protest videos from across China.

At one point on Sunday the account said: “Currently, there are over a dozen requests every second.”

Netizens also try to evade censors with spoofs of patriotic posts or those showing a blank square, a reference to the white sheet of paper — a symbol of protest adopted by the Chinese.

A post, which went viral on the app WeChat of China, used by more than a billion users, repeated the word “good” for every line, apparently mocking the tendency of the authorities and state media to present everything positively.

The post was widely shared before it disappeared.

Some WeChat users have posted excerpts from statements by leaders such as Mao Zedong and Xi expressing support for free speech or popular uprising in speeches given under different circumstances, which now seem appropriate for opponents of her policies zero COVID.

“Now the Chinese people are organized and we must not mess with them,” Xi says in an excerpt from a 2020 speech commemorating the 70th anniversary of China’s entry into the Korean War, which was widely republished on Monday .

RES-EMP

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