China Finally Acknowledges Protests, Blames Unspecified ‘Infiltration and Sabotage’

The Chinese Communist Party’s media arms finally acknowledged on Wednesday a wave of anti-regime protests that swept the nation over the weekend – an eruption of public dissent preceded by nearly two years of regular, but isolated, protests – blaming unspecified “hostile forces” for creating artificial discord.

Crowds of hundreds of protesters congregated throughout the weekend in some of China’s major cities – most prominently in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Zhengzhou – demanding an end to the regime’s “zero-Covid” policy, which utilizes mass house arrest and lockdown protocols to allegedly contain the spread of Chinese coronavirus. Chinese officials have repeatedly claimed to have “optimized” their brutal policies but have done little to change them in practice, “advising” residents, under threat of authoritarian communist law, not to leave their homes rather than welding their doors shut. The protesters have not limited themselves to condemning coronavirus policies, but have also employed slogans against communism and dictator Xi Jinping generally.

Prior to the protests this weekend, what were once rare displays of dissent had slowly become regular occurrences nationwide in the last year. While some were small – one man notably displayed a massive banner on Beijing’s Sitong Bridge last month reading, in part, “traitor dictator Xi Jinping” – others have involved hundreds of people, most prominently an ongoing riot at the world’s largest iPhone factory in Zhengzhou.