Barely a month after granting himself new powers as China's potential leader for life, Xi Jinping is facing a wave of public anger of the kind not seen for decades, sparked by his “zero COVID” strategy that will soon enter its fourth year.
SHANGHAI - Barely a month after granting himself new powers as's potential leader for life, Xi Jinping is facing a wave of public anger of the kind not seen for decades, sparked by his “zero COVID” strategy that will soon enter its fourth year.
The official response has been muted. Police in Shanghai used pepper spray to drive away demonstrators, and dozens were detained in police sweeps and driven away in police vans and buses.'s vast internal security apparatus is also famed for identifying people it considers troublemakers and picking them up later when few are watching.
The party has long imposed surveillance and travel restrictions on minorities including Tibetans and Muslim groups such as Uyghurs, more than 1 million of whom have been detained in camps where they are forced to renounce their traditional culture and religion and swear fealty to Xi. To develop into something on the scale of the 1989 protests would require clear divisions within the leadership that could be leveraged for change, Hung said.
The normally supportive head of the World Health Organization has called “zero COVID” unsustainable. Beijing dismissed his remarks as irresponsible, but public acceptance of the restrictions has worn thin.
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