China is having a COVID crisis
Last week China confirmed its first COVID death in months. In Guangzhou, protests against COVID lockdowns have turned violent. The CCP’s solution? Beat the protestors into submission, and place anyone who tests positive into a COVID lockdown camp.
If you don’t believe it, take a look:
As for the camps, here is a video:
There are three certainties about China and their management of COVID that we know of, but their specifics are lacking because data is being withheld by the CCP.
- COVID is still spreading frequently in China
- People are dying from COVID still
- The Chinese people are fed up with ineffective, cruel solutions such as forced lockdowns in camps
Guangzhou and Xinjiang have seen protests recently. Xinjiang saw protests erupt after a fire killed 10 people in Urumqi, but it is possible the protests are in defiance of something greater.
Xinjiang is one of the western regions of China and is home to a large number of the Uyghur population. China has been cracking down on the Uyghurs with a military occupation of the region, mass surveillance, the use of concentration camps, and re-education programs.
The news of protests in Guangzhou and Xinjiang are not necessarily shocking though, as earlier this month there were mass protests at an iPhone factory in Zhengzhou.
China has had extremely harsh COVID rules since the beginning of the outbreak, but since there are no signs of the crisis ending in China — while much of the world seems to have managed and forgotten about it — the Chinese people have begun to use their collective voice to speak out against the regime.
The prospect of mass protests cross China, because of COVID, is interesting because it could be indicative of a broader crisis for the CCP.
COVID has been a means to protest the government (which was for awhile thought to be unquestionable), COVID saw China’s economy stumble (an economy which had been growing rapidly for years), and Russia’s war in Ukraine — showing China how the world reacted to such an unprovoked conflict — could potentially dampen the CCP’s promised invasion of Taiwan.
In no way is the CCP at risk of capitulation or Xi at risk of being ousted, but the situation in China is a precarious one. It will certainly have people asking questions.
Perhaps some of these internal struggles — which China has tried to keep under wraps — is why the CCP has had so much recent diplomatic engagement with the US. At those meetings (one with Biden and one with SECDEF, for example), the Chinese officials voiced their desire for better relations with the US and more economic cooperation. They did not, however, budge on Taiwan.
Without drawing extreme and irrational conclusions, there is still a valuable lesson here. Desperation can be hidden, and power faked.
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UPDATE: November 27, 2022
The protests have embraced broader rhetoric — which I like to think I presumed would happen. Watch the video below. In it, the protestors are allegedly demanding the resignation of Xi, and the end to CCP rule.
NOTE: I do not speak Mandarin or any other Chinese dialect, so the translations are taken directly from the Tweet at face value.
Another video from the protests. Some serious firepower for just keeping civility…
