Strong protests against Covid lockdown in China - NRK Urix

China’s “dynamic intolerance” of Covid-19 means that few citizens have had to pay for their lives because of the coronavirus.

However, many of the lockdowns are eroding patience and the economy, and many believe that politics has become a threat to life and health.

On Friday evening, people in Urumqi, western China, must have been boiling. People took to the streets and demanded an end to the lockdowns.

The videos show residents gathered in a public square, clench their fists in the air and sing parts of the national anthem with the words “Rise up, you who refuse to be slaves.”

Reuters published the footage, and the news agency was able to verify the site. Neither the news agency nor NRK can date the videos, but they do coincide with several reports about the incident.

heated discussion

A fire broke out in a locked apartment building on Thursday, throwing an ember into the heated discussion on social media. It is about whether a strict corona policy is really in the best interest of the country.

Ten people died in a fire in Urumqi in Xinjiang, with many blaming the lockdown. It has been proven that it is often difficult to get out of an enclosed area and get help when an emergency situation arises.

Many Urumqi residents have been living in closed areas for the past 100 days. This is one of the longest things that people in China have experienced.

Government officials held a press conference on Saturday and claimed that the coronavirus measures did not prevent people from going out or getting help.

Newspaper Global Times JT, one of the authorities’ mouthpieces, wrote that the incident would be investigated.

However, the heated discussion continued on social media.

Scarcely

It is rare for the outside world to get photos of demonstrations in China, but there are also small protests now against the lockdown in Beijing.

A video posted on Twitter shows people kicking over barriers in what is supposed to be a residential area in Tiantongyuan. This place is half an hour’s drive west of Beijing International Airport.

Protests in recent days have led to an earlier-than-planned end to lockdowns in several places.

People called the police when neighborhood committees, which carry out tasks on behalf of the Communist Party, tried to get people to go home in quarantine.

In many cases, the police supported local residents when they argued that they were against the rules of quarantining entire residential areas due to a small number of infected people or close contacts on the same street.

The Global Times reported that the pathological situation in Xinjiang is now under control, and life will soon return to normal.

I got support

The Chinese authorities prioritize peace and stability more than anything else.

The Communist Party gained a lot of support among the population when Covid was defeated by amazingly harsh methods in the country in 2020.

Citizens were happy that there were so few deaths compared to almost every other country in the world, and that the economy was quickly back on its feet.

After the virus subsequently resurfaced through other countries, the zero tolerance of Covid led to even greater impatience in the population.

The World Health Organization has recommended that China reconsider its corona policy, but small attempts to open more still lead to severe lockdowns when the number of cases rises.

Register in China

The consequences of the ongoing closure are great for small and medium-sized businesses, but also for transnational business cooperation.

However, the Chinese economy grew 3.9 percent last year, but the target was 5.5 percent growth.

Chinese authorities defend the measures by saying that many elderly people have chosen not to be vaccinated, and that the health system will not be able to withstand an onslaught of Covid patients.

On Friday, the country recorded 34,909 cases of COVID-19. These are low numbers compared to the outside world, but still a record for the third time in China.