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What just happened with the mass street protests in China? Alec= Ash on the causes and consequences of an unprecedented show of popular ang= er at the communist state.

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Viral Effects

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What just happ= ened with the mass street protests in China? Alec Ash on t= he causes and consequences of an unprecedented show of popular anger at the= communist state.

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Martin Sanchez

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After = the biggest outbreak of political demonstrations since the Tiananm= en Square uprising of 1989, Beijing announced on December 7 that it would e= nd its anti-Covid policies of lockdowns, mass testing, and mass quarantines= . The concessions followed a flaring of protests in more than 20 cities, st= arting in late November. After 10 people were killed in a fire in Urumqi, t= he capital of Xinjiang Province, on November 24, thousands of demonstrators= gathered across urban centers and college campuses during the following th= ree days, demanding an end to national zero-Covid policies—and in som= e cases, chanting calls for President Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist = Party to step down. Amid intensive global media coverage, the challenge to = Beijing’s authority has surprised many close observers of Chinese aff= airs, given the one-party regime’s long history of quashing dissent&m= dash;and extensive system for surveilling its citizenry. Meanwhile, any cha= nge in China’s domestic political dynamics could have major implicati= ons for global politics, as Xi has positioned the People’s Republic&m= dash;and its political system based on centralized control—as the wor= ld’s leading rival to the United States in global influence. So, are = the recent protests across China a passing phenomenon, or is something fund= amentally changing?

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=09=09=09=09=09=09Alec Ash is a writer and editor based in= China, and the author of Wish Lanterns, a book on the lives of si= x young Chinese people. As Ash sees it, the protests represent a major land= mark—the first time many Chinese have questioned whether the Communis= t Party was acting in their best interests. He doesn’t see a fundamen= tal threat to the regime yet—because popular grievance has been focus= ed on the zero-Covid policies and not on the system as a whole. But it&rsqu= o;s still unclear what will become of the long-simmering discontent in Chin= a’s youngest generations, with the growing sentiment among them that = the Chinese state isn’t delivering the material improvements it&rsquo= ;s promised them in exchange for their hard work—and silence.

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Michae= l Bluhm: Who’s been involved in these protests?

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=09=09=09=09=09=09Alec Ash: It’s a good question to = start with. Anytime there is a protest in China, headlines in Western media= often jump to “Tiananmen Redux!”—and then a closer exami= nation of events on the ground inevitably complicates the analogy. But in t= his case, the protests beginning on November 24 genuinely were unprecedente= d in the last 30 years.

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=09=09=09=09=09=09Now, the numbers of people protesting in 20-or-so cities = around China are nowhere near the tens of thousands protesting on Tiananmen= Square in 1989. But friends and sources in Beijing report that for every p= rotester holding up a blank sheet of paper—or any other protest icono= graphy—there were another five onlookers who were very likely sympath= etic to them.

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=09=09=09=09=09=09The protesters tend to skew young and to be people direct= ly affected by the zero-Covid policy—people whose ability to earn has= been affected by the lockdowns—meaning, they’re more likely to= be urban. They also include a broad swath of the working class. The protes= ts appear to have attracted different segments of the population and people= from different cities across China. It’s the first time I’ve s= een a single policy issue unite and activate such geographically and demogr= aphically diverse groups in the country.

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=09=09=09=09=09=09Bluhm: You say young people are the core= of this movement. There’ve been signs of social unrest among them fo= r some time now. Income inequality is rising, and people are increasingly l= ikely to stay in the social class they were born into. In late 2021, Victor Shih told us that many young people wer= e frustrated that they—and their parents—had invested so much i= n their education, and yet their employment prospects were more and more li= mited. The regime had long seemed to promise its citizens a deal, exchangin= g most of their rights and freedoms for continually robust economic growth.= And now young people increasingly feel they aren’t getting what they= were promised in the deal. How do you see the sources of discontent among = young people in China?

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Ash: I wrote a book in 2016, Wish Lanterns, about the lives of = six young Chinese. The vast majority of the people I spoke to simply weren&= rsquo;t engaged with politics—not out of apathy or affection for the = Communist Party, but because they still felt they had the opportunity to ma= ke better lives for themselves. They hoped for upward social mobility, good= jobs, the prospect of buying a flat; they hoped their futures could be bet= ter than their parents’ lives.

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=09=09=09=09=09=09I’m not sure this feeling is shared by the generati= on born after 1990. Many of them were complaining about a lack of opportuni= ty even before Covid. Youth unemployment is now pushing 20 percent. And man= y participate in what is called passive resistance, whether by escaping the= cities altogether or “lying flat,” the Chinese term for when y= oung people either quit or scale back their work at jobs that demand long w= orking hours.
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=09=09=09=09=09=09The deeper malaise and discontent that underlies the ange= r at the zero-Covid policy among young people is this sense that they&rsquo= ;re not getting what they were promised in their tacit deal with the govern= ment. They’re not guaranteed a good job, social mobility, or personal= economic development. Instead, there’s a sentiment that whatever the= y do, they’re screwed. Covid—with the limits that it put on the= ir education and entry to the job market—was the catalyst for them to= express that discontent, but the discontent was already there.
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=09=09=09=09=09=09Bluhm: So, China’s economy has bee= n hit hard by Covid, and there were signs of= trouble even before it. The gover= nment had meanwhile cracked down on the tech sector, seriously harming some= of the country’s biggest companies, which lost more than US$1 trilli= on in valuations and are now hiring far fewer people. And there’s an = ongoing property bubble, which has cause= d some regional banks to collapse. How much discontent are these economic p= roblems causing?
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=09=09=09=09=09=09Ash: You’re bang on the money, to = use an appropriate phrase. The impact on people’s wallets is the grea= t uniting factor behind discontent about the zero-Covid policy. I had a con= versation with someone in China shortly after the Shanghai lockdown was lif= ted, and he said the Chinese people are happy to give up their freedoms, bu= t when you start messing with their economy, that’s a different matte= r.
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The lockdowns = are messing not just with individual livelihoods but with the economy at la= rge. This unites all social segments in saying, Enough—this has g= ot to stop. That’s what’s been driving the protests.
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I’d like= to think that the top echelons of China’s government know this and s= hare the opinion. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang seemed to express it once. Man= y people are wondering why China has been pursuing a policy that’s ac= tively damaging its economy. But they’re caught between a rock and a = hard place, given the high number of deaths that opening up the economy wou= ld mean.
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Lisanto =E6=9D=8E=E5= =A5=95=E8=89=AF

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More from = Alec Ash at The Signal:

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=09=09=09=09=09=09“It’s important to recognize= that not everyone is unhappy with the zero-Covid policy—or with the = regime. There’s a whole segment of the Chinese population, especially= in rural areas, that’s perfectly happy with the policy. They complet= ely buy the propaganda about zero-Covid and what a mess other countries are= in. They have no real sense of solidarity with the cities under lockdown. = That said, many people are not happy with the policy and have now been very= vocal about it—probably more than half the population. The protests = have united elites and working classes—which is another parallel with= Tiananmen, although this is a very different set of circumstances.”<= /div> =09=09=09=09=09=09

=09=09=09=09=09=09“Effectively, no one who’s been prote= sting opposes the regime as such. Of course, the headlines picked = up on the chants from November 25 calling for Xi Jinping and the Communist = Party to step down. But that was the only instance of protesters using this= slogan. Almost no one has called for any kind of regime change—just = an end to the zero-Covid policy. … Still, it was apparent in Beijing= , as it has been in other cities, that these policies are, without question= , extremely and unusually unpopular among the majority of the Chinese peopl= e.”

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=09=09=09=09=09=09“This is a very meaningful moment = for the party and for China. It’s the first time in over a decade of = living in the country when I could see people beginning to question whether= the party was acting in their interests. That’s a huge change, becau= se for the last decade or so, most Chinese people lived with the belief tha= t the party was acting entirely in their best interests—unless they w= ere a dissident or a minority caught in the state’s teeth.” =09=09=09=09=09=09

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The Signal explores urgent que= stions in current events around the world—to support it and for full = access:

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