CLAREMONT, CALIFORNIA ¨C China has lately experienced its largest and most politically charged protests since the pro-democracy movement in 1989 ended in a massacre by government forces on Tiananmen Square.
The recent social eruption should not be surprising; frustrations over the Chinese government¡¯s rigid ¡°zero-COVID¡± policy have been brewing for a long time. Yet the ruling Communist Party of China (CCP) apparently did not see the protests coming, despite operating an all-pervasive and deeply intrusive surveillance apparatus. Now, the central government has announced that it will accelerate the shift away from zero-COVID with a broad easing of restrictions. After publishing a set of 20 guidelines for officials to follow last month, it has now cut the list down to 10.
Faced with the protests, President Xi Jinping¡¯s government eschewed brutal Tiananmen-style suppression of the demonstrations. While large numbers of police have been deployed to protest sites, they have avoided bloody ¡°crowd-control¡± tactics and mass arrests, preferring instead to identify and intimidate protesters using cell-phone tracking technology. But CCP leaders also warned that a ¡°resolute crackdown¡± was coming. According to Chen Wenqing, the CCP¡¯s newly installed domestic security chief, the authorities will target ¡°infiltration and sabotage activities by hostile forces¡± and ¡°illegal and criminal acts that disrupt social order.¡±
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.