Chinese police flood the streets to try to quell the escalating protests

Chinese authorities are fighting widespread protests by flooding the streets with police in a strong show of force for a regime facing its biggest dissent in decades.

“I’ve wanted to speak for a long time, but I haven’t had the chance,” James Cai, a 29-year-old from Shanghai who attended a Hong Kong protest, told the Associated Press on Tuesday. “If the people of the continent can’t take it anymore, neither can I.”

As protests continued in the freer “Special Administrative Region” of Hong Kong, Chinese police in major cities including Shanghai and Beijing worked to quell protests that had been escalating across the country since last week past

Videos have emerged from the country in recent days showing both angry protesters and the attempted police crackdown, with protesters overturning tents at the nucleic acid testing site in the city of Guangzhou on Monday. Meanwhile, police arrived at protests in a fire truck in southern China and tried to disperse protesters with a fire hose.

CHINESE POLICE GET VIOLENT WITH NATIONWIDE COVID-19 LOCKDOWN PROTESTS

A man is arrested as people gather on a street in Shanghai on November 27, 2022, where protests against China’s ‘zero COVID’ policy took place the night before after a deadly fire in Urumqi , the capital of Xinjiang region.
(Photo by HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP via Getty Images)

The show of force has largely worked to calm the cities, with no word of additional protests in Shanghai or Beijing on Tuesday, according to the Associated Press.

The Chinese government has faced a growing backlash over its strict anti-virus measures after a fire at an apartment complex in the country’s far-western region killed 10 people, many of them they impacted the local fire department’s delay in arriving at the scene due to the roadblocks. China’s “zero-COVID” policy.

Protesters have called for an end to the policy, which has disrupted lives and the Chinese economy, while some have called for the resignation of the country’s top leaders.

Authorities have responded by easing some of the COVID restrictions in an attempt to ease some of the anger, but have refused to back down from the country’s larger anti-Covid strategy. Instead, many localities across the country have begun a strict effort to stifle any dissent to government authority.

Protesters hold blank papers and chant slogans as they march in Beijing, Sunday, Nov. 27, 2022.
(AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

CHINESE AUTHORITIES EASE COVID-19 RESTRICTIONS IN SOME NEIGHBORHOODS AFTER PROTESTS

Chinese universities sent students home on Tuesday, in addition to an increased police presence on the streets, with police checking people’s phones on the streets and in subway stations. One Shanghai resident, who did not give his name to The Associated Press for fear of reprisals, said his phone was checked at a subway station while on his way to a protest he read about online, but that he could not find the protest.

Meanwhile, those who took part in the protests over the weekend have reported that the authorities are trying to hunt them down, according to a BBC report. Several Beijing residents told police that he had called them asking for information about his whereabouts.

“We are all desperately deleting our chat history,” said one protester in Beijing. “The police came to check the ID of one of my friends and then took her away. A few hours later they let her go.”

Chinese authorities have said the unrest over the country’s COVID policies was not the fault of the national government, instead blaming local districts for sometimes having “arbitrary measures” that have angered residents.

In this photo taken on Sunday, police arrest a protester during a protest on a street in Shanghai.
(AP)

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“[There is an] on the practice of containment measures [in some localities]… this is not aligned with national policies,” Cheng You Quan of the National Administration for Disease Prevention and Control said at a news conference on Tuesday, according to the BBC.

“Local governments should show more responsibility and follow national guidelines, [instead of following practices like] arbitrarily shutting down schools and industry,” the official added. “We should name and shame, as well as pursue criminal liability if necessary. Lockdowns should be fast and the removal of locks should be just as fast.”

When asked if the country planned to backtrack on COVID measures as a result of the protests, National Health Commission spokesman Mi Feng hinted at a slight compromise.

“We are going to maintain and control the negative impact on people’s livelihoods and lives,” the spokesman said at a press conference on Tuesday.