China’s Xi Jinping faces calls to resign as deadly fire sparks unprecedented protests against ‘zero-COVID’ policy

Thousands of people took to the streets China during the weekend in the major public events the country has known for decades. Protesters gathered in at least ten cities – including Shanghai and Beijing – calling for the resignation of President Xi Jinping over draconian COVID-19 policies that saw hundreds of millions of people fenced off in their buildings.

On Sunday evening, CBS News spoke with one of the protesters as she joined a crowd of protesters on the streets of Shanghai. The woman, whose identity we are protecting because speaking with the media could get her arrested, said locals were “very angry” about the continued lockdowns that have disrupted life in China for years.

She said she and her friends did not support the Chinese government’s handling of COVID, adding, “Nobody around me supports politics.”

As she spoke, the police rushed through the crowd of protesters and the woman was led away by friends.

In videos shared online, other protesters could be heard in the streets chanting “Down with Xi Jinping!” and “Down with the Communist Party!” — things that, until now, few people in China would have even dared to say out loud.

It is unclear how many people were arrested over the weekend, although The Associated Press reports that dozens were taken away in police vans in Shanghai alone.

Among those arrested was a BBC News journalist who said he was kicked and beaten during his arrest and held for hours before being released. Chinese authorities said he did not provide his press credentials when asked.

The BBC reporter said he believed at least one Chinese national had also been arrested as they tried to stop police beating him.

UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly called the incident “deeply disturbing”.

“Freedom of the media and the freedom to demonstrate must be respected. No country is exempt,” Cleverly said.

A fire that sparked protests

An apartment fire in the western region of Xinjiang last week appears to have been the final straw that pushed people to their breaking points. Ten people were killed in the blaze, prompting angry crowds to gather around government offices in the belief that strict COVID restrictions had prevented residents from escaping the blaze.

It was a nightmare scenario for many Chinese people who live in similar apartment buildings and who feared being similarly trapped due to strict COVID-19 lockdown restrictions. During the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been other horror story children or elderly people die in confinement due to lack of access to medical care.

Video and audio clips of residents of the Xinjiang apartment pleading to be released from the building to escape the blaze have been released online, further stoking public anger.

Authorities have denied COVID restrictions were the cause of the deaths, but people have started holding sympathy vigils with the victims. Some held up blank sheets of paper to symbolize how critical voices are silenced in China.

Fire-area officials said over the weekend they would begin easing the region’s COVID restrictions by opening up some areas deemed low-risk, and on Monday the Beijing city government said that he would no longer build doors to block access to apartments where COVID -19 infections are discovered.

But by Sunday evening, largely peaceful but utterly unprecedented dissent had spread across the country, even to the capital Beijing.

At a regular daily briefing on Monday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian claimed that “on social media, there are forces with ulterior motives that link this fire to the local response. to COVID-19”.

Ho-fung Hung, a sociologist at Johns Hopkins University, told CBS News partner network BBC News that the situation was the first serious test for Xi, who recently won another term as leader of China.

“Over the past two years, Mr. Xi has backed into a corner by adopting the policy of zero COVID. The most rational way for him to handle the situation if the protests continue to grow is to put pressure on the authorities locals to crack down hard while distancing themselves,” Ho-fung said. “But then there is a risk that local authorities will refuse to follow the directive closely because they are worn down by zero-Covid rigidities.”

Beyond specific denial about the link between COVID restrictions and fire deaths in Xinjiang, it was not immediately clear how China’s central government would react to the protests.