China censors rare, nationwide protests

Word of mouth remains a powerful tool, and with phones can be spread across the large nation of China in seconds. Multiple cities are already protesting and word continues to spread regardless of censors.

Let us hope this trickle that is now a stream turns into a torrent and tidal wave of protests everywhere in China. This shows not only the Chinese people how everyone else really feels, but shows the world as well. Not everyone supports the CCP and its rule.

Let us hope this trickle that is now a stream turns into a torrent and tidal wave of protests everywhere in China. This shows not only the Chinese people how everyone else really feels, but shows the world as well. Not everyone supports the CCP and its rule.

Hear! Hear!

I have a feeling that the younger generations, which are much more informed and connected than say 20-30 years ago are going to rise up against these thugs. The CCP, the IR, and even Kim's days are numbered. They still have a lot of power and control, but I'm confident in my lifetime, I'll see an end to these dictatorships.

Isnt ironic? Chinese students in their Universities are fighting for freedom while western and US university students are fighting against it. I pray the plague of communism is swept away into the dust bin of history.

Would not be surprised that Police will start shooting the protestors. The CCP just does not care, they have an abundance of people.

Finally,you have never been on college campus lately,what do you know

It seems like protests come too late to be effective, the CCP has accumulated too much power to censor and repress discontent already, so it can simply squash small demonstrations almost instantly. The people have been fine with this situation because of the economic incentive on being completely compliant, so now that the government is turning on the population, it has the capacity to do it unchallenged.

Unless of course everybody rebels at the same time...

Didn’t happen, look over there.

Anyone with an iota of historical knowledge of China knows the government can snuff out large demonstrations almost instantly.

These new protests won't get too far.

First in Iran, now in China. I hope these evil regimes fall and real democracy reigns.

Hopefully with CCP, the last bastion of Communism will fall.

Among other places, communism is the worst thing that has ever happened to Central Asia.

Anyone with an iota of historical knowledge of China knows the government can snuff out large demonstrations almost instantly.

> These new protests won't get too far.

This is way bigger than Tianamen square. Also the situation is different. You better believe the Chinese people are not just going to go back to being welded in their homes. The government will have concede or this will be the end of the CCP.

Burning BushToday  04:33 pm JST

That is not the point. How far they go is irrelevant. Point is they are happening, demonstrating once again that zero-covid is wrong and should be stopped.

It is my point and it is completely relevant.

Zero covid is the best policy for the health of the people. The 1.06 million dead in the US from Covid likely would agree.

darknutsToday  04:42 pm JST

This is way bigger than Tianamen square.

No it is not.

Also the situation is different.

Yeah, the government is more repressive now.

You better believe the Chinese people are not just going to go back to being welded in their homes. The government will have concede or this will be the end of the CCP.

Or option three--the government crushes the protesters,

Likely it will reel back the restrictions a bit; give the people some false control.

It is also impossible, as China has been figuring out.

Zero covid is the best policy for the health of the people. The 1.06 million dead in the US from Covid likely would agree.

Zero covid is the best policy for the health of the people. The 1.06 million dead in the US from Covid likely would agree.

International experts clearly disagree, as well as you yourself that considered the approach of Sweden a better alternative because it leads to control of the pandemic without causing more unnecessary deaths and health problems as the lockdowns do.

https://japantoday.com/category/features/kuchikomi/more-kids-showing-signs-of-premature-aging#comment-3257354

As you yourself recognized, the focused protection (based on vaccination and effective treatment) is a better alternative than the zero covid policy. Which is why no international expert recommends following China's example.

The 1.06 million dead in the US from Covid likely would agree.

how many of those after there was a vaccine?

best way to not die from COVID is to.....not get COVID in the first place.

Which a vaccine seems to have no impact on as it allows one to both get infected -and- transmit it to others.

Cracks look like they're spreading, little by little.

I hope these evil regimes fall and real democracy reigns.

Pray tell, where in the world is there a "real democracy"?

I think the world would settle for a social-democratic system like the US has!

First in Iran, now in China. I hope these evil regimes fall and real democracy reigns.

And don't forget Canada. I wonder what PM Trudeau's comments will be about the protests in China, and the government's response...

best way to not die from COVID is to.....not get COVID in the first place.

That is the thing, if the solution is worse than what it is preventing, (and specially when there are other solutions with better cost/benefit ratio) then it is not the "best" solution.

After the introduction of Omicron preventing infections became a much more difficult and costly thing to do, meanwhile vaccines and effective treatments are making preventing complications, hospitalization and deaths from those infections much easier and less costly (in money, lives and sacrifice of individual rights).

ah, "the science changed" narrative. got it.

ah, "the science changed" narrative. got it.

No, the science is exactly the same, the factors on the cost/benefit equation are the ones that changed. Is the same as a patient being treated with very toxic drugs for a life threatening disease, if the disease is solved and the patient then only needs mild supportive measures to keep in good health that does not means "the medical science" changed, what changed is the risk factors and the need for extreme measures.

Large crowds, hundreds etc. Are you kidding? Do you by incidence know how a big population they have there? The CCP and Xi will just only smile them away if they even hear about those very few. The fact that they are not even starting slightly their repression apparatus because of them shows the minimum dimension of that protest. Only their individual courage is very remarkable, but by far not the number or dimension.

It's been long coming since 1989, and now ere it comes, could this be a Turning Point!? we will wait and see, looks like Mr. Xi bit more that he could chew

I wish these people enormous success. Fight the good fight.

@Yrral my friend I see you have spoken. The younger generation in China is not going to put up with the nonsense the government is putting them through. Xi Ping knows this, if you listened carefully to his speech it was directed to the young people of China to build the nation he could care less about the older depressed generation instead of them laying flat it is the Younger Generation who is laying flat!!! I can't hear you Yrrai FINALLY THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN!

Finally,you have never been on college campus lately,what do you know

@Burning Bush

”What's more, there is no easy way out of the corner the Party appears to have painted itself into.

It has had three years to prepare for an eventual reopening, but instead of building more hospital ICU units and emphasising the need for vaccinations, it has poured enormous resources into mass testing, lockdown and isolation facilities designed to win a war against a virus which is never going away.

The end is near.”

I basically agree with the sentiment except the end is near part. Just I’m pretty sure I read that sentiment verbatim from the BBC this morning, except the end is near part. Lol.

Currently, I've heard that most Chinese people are revolting.....

If the citizens of China are doing swan dives out of windows and off balconies they will be willing to die for freedoms even if it means going against the government. When the people get to that point they feel they have nothing to lose. They feel its better to die than to be a prisoner in their own homes.

@MumbaiRocks I agree the analogy which seemed to work years ago and the people learned from it, not only did they learn from it they are seeing what happened in Hong Kong. The young people in China is at a point where they are not believing any reports because of what they are experiencing in their daily lives. They perhaps feel now is the time to get the movement going forward they learned from the Tienanmen square uprising when everything was shut down.

I think China can easily deflect this saying it is fake news or foreign propaganda, then laying off a bit until the people forget. That seems to be the worldwide strategy including in the US.

These protests are not only about zero covid restrictions. Those are the last straw for an angry and frustrated population. On top of this you have water and power shortages, high youth unemployment especially so for recent university graduates and an increasing feeling that working hard is not rewarded. Young Chinese have taken up an ethic they call "lying flat", doing the absolute minimum necessary to get by and nothing more. Many think it a waste to get a university degree. Xi Jinping may exhort the young to work harder and build up a mighty China but the young are having none of it. For those with an entrepreneurial bent, seeing someone as prominent as Jack Ma stripped of the highly successful company he built sent a message that getting wealthy can get you punished by the state under Chairman Xi and that the state can take anything from anybody with no recourse. Tens of thousands of business owners who joined the CCP years ago as a place to network with other business owners and develop contacts, people who are not even a little bit Marxist, find themselves forced to attend regular indoctrination sessions they hate or get kicked out of the party and probably face repercussions with their businesses. Where in the past one only had to pony up a "red envelope" for a party cadre once to start a business, business owners increasingly find those party cadre coming around regularly asking for more, and if another red envelope is not produced, around comes the various state agencies to inspect the premises and audit you. "Violations" and fines always follow, costing more than that red envelope would have cost. The CCP at a local level as become no different than a Triad protection racket. Zero covid is the straw that broke the camels back if you wish but the anger has been building for years.

Chinese people of every social class want an easing of rules and an exit path to work towards. Xi had he chance at the Party Conference and chose incorrectly to try to muddle through making no changes.

I think the world would settle for a social-democratic system like the US has!

The US is a republic - representative government.

The US is far from perfect. There are probably better forms of Republic govts in the world today, but what works best for each location depends on the culture of those lands and the method of governance is part of the culture each needs to overcome to change.

What the US does well is to allow personal freedoms and only restrict those with "due process" - i.e. anyone can sue the govt to have their views considered. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. The offended person gets their day(s) in court and that can directly change laws - local or across the entire country.

Nobody in the US "disappears" at the hands of the govt. Can't say that about China or NK or Russia or much of Africa. Central and South America still have people "disappeared", but not like it was 40 yrs ago.

Protests happen every weekend in the US. Every Saturday, outside the local family planning clinic, there would be 2 - 20 people standing with signs against providing science-based information to pregnant women/girls. I'd heckle them from the street and they would calmly say "Dog Bless You" with a smile. Half of the people protesting would be the kids of the right-wing anti-abortion parents. Too young to know better, but learning an important lesson. I like that they are allowed to stand on public property and have their ideas/voices/signs seen and heard. Being heard and not being censored by the govt is a critical part of being an American citizen/resident. Heck, we believe it so much that even tourists are allowed to have their wacko free speech against any level of govt seen/heard in the US. Weak govts in many parts of the world don't allow non-citizens to protest. It is illegal in those places.

China does allow some protests, btw. They just have to be about things that the CCP doesn't care about and can't be anti-govt or anti-CCP. But if the offending person/company/organization being protested against is politically connected, then the thugs and police are sent to break up the protests. Much like we saw in Belarus when the thugs were videoed bashing anti-establishment protestors last year.

Tyrants will be always be tyrants and these protests will end with severe punishments to scare the hell out of anyone thinking of protesting.

It’s always that way through history.

Keep those masks on and don't get caught. They slaughtered people after the Tiananmen Square protest and they will do again.

On one hand I'm all for democracy, free speech, anti-repression, etc. On the other hand, we, western nations don't need any added competition. Shall we consider letting them continue to do dumb things and keep themselves down? Let them repress, control, remain a "little people" with an isolated ignorant government. Lets not try to teach them how to be a better people and a stronger country. We don't need the competition.

Just a thought.

Only 5 thousand deaths have happened in China due to the coronovirus pandemic.

1.49M Cases and 5,232Total deaths, if you or anyone believes either of those numbers, ya'll should seek some health care provider for assistance.

Elon Musk, the Chinese puppet, has been doing his part to help the CCP censor because he fears his cars will no longer get produced or allow to be sold in the Chinese market.

Chinese bots spammed Twitter with porn, which buried news about COVID-19 protests in China, report says

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/chinese-bots-spammed-twitter-porn-124853882.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall

Luckily, the World Cup has been enough to fuel the protests.

This problem would not have happened if the CCP would used the better more reliable foreign COVID vaccinations. Their nationalistic government is too scared of embarrassment to allow more foreign vaccines.

The main reason for the strict COVID lockdowns is because of the less effective Chinese made vaccines! The second reason is the older Chinese generations do not trust modern medicine and prefers traditional Chinese medicine which is not always reliable.

I remember when the usual paid agitators on JT was claiming the superiority of the Russian and Chinese vaccines.

This problem would not have happened if the CCP would used the better more reliable foreign COVID vaccinations. Their nationalistic government is too scared of embarrassment to allow more foreign vaccines.

It is also very important that lockdowns are a much more efficient tool for population control, the main purpose is not public health, is public obedience, this explain why the CCP is choosing the costly inefficient zero covid policy even when it has such big disadvantages, the one advantage it has is the one they are more interested in having.

Try all you want, China. Soon your people will rise up against you!

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that the Chinese 5000 deaths compared to the 1 million death due to covid infections in the USA is drastically different.

So what? the USA is not the best example of a country that have dealt successfully with the pandemic, if someone has to say "this is very safe, compared with TNT is hardly as dangerous" this clearly disproves completely the point.

Now, can you bring a reference where an international expert recommends the zero covid policy in 2022? because if you can't this means the international experts clearly disagree.

Which country was most effective at curbing infections and saving lives.

According to death rates equalized as the Chinese reports them (ignoring any death where a comorbidity can be blamed instead) more than a dozen other countries have lower rates compared with China.

And this is ignoring the deaths directly attributable to the lockdowns, that China is also not reporting at all, this means that the "success" of China completely depends on not reporting the negative consequences of their model, so countries like Sweden (that also reports a dozen national deaths) is supposedly worse.

the USA is not the best example of a country that have dealt successfully with the pandemic,

And that failure can be traced back to 1 incompetent boob, who is gone now and under criminal investigation.

Chinese govt statistics have always been a joke, never the truth. They lie about temperatures and anyone who thinks they aren't lying about COVID and ZeroCOVID deaths needs help. People in lock down are jumping from their balconies to escape. Far to many to count, but Chinese social media has many videos, before the Chinese censors started removing those posts. Sorta like how the CCP censors anything negative online an had police forcing people near the protests delete photos and videos in an attempt to limit the truth.

https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2020/04/10/2003734324

Other countries have purchased Chinese-made COVID tests and found them to be completely unreliable, so their COVID case numbers are pure fiction. Less than 35% accurate.

The head of the CCP govt statistics branch has admitted their economic data is false.

What's really funny is that using bogus statistics is actually against Chinese law, but the entire upper leadership is using it constantly, hourly. http://www.stats.gov.cn/english/LF/SL/201209/t20120921_27177.html There are 50 articles - just to require people to tell the truth - yet it doesn't work.

Article 10 No entity or individual may seek titles of honor, material benefits or job promotion by making use of false statistical data.

International experts clearly disagree, as well as you yourself that considered the approach of Sweden a better alternative because it leads to control of the pandemic without causing more unnecessary deaths and health problems as the lockdowns do.

The consensus view is the opposite, as no international expert disagrees that zero covid is the best strategy to prevent the millions of unnecessary deaths and health problems seen around the world.

International experts clearly disagree with you that Sweden's approach as anywhere near effective as China's approach, as Sweden incurred a higher infection rate than many countries and also saw its economy in a shambles. And your support for natural immunity is an approach that international experts agree is not attainable.

The consensus view is the opposite

You have produced exactly zero international expert recommending the Chinese policy, and you yourself have recognized Sweden have a better approach. At this point you have supported the claim that Sweden has surpassed China.

You have also produced exactly zero experts that say the pandemic is the only factor that affects the economy of a country. That is a personal claim of yours, not of any expert.

You have produced exactly zero international expert recommending the Chinese policy, and you yourself have recognized Sweden have a better approach. At this point you have supported the claim that Sweden has surpassed China.

In addition to the global experts advocating for the effectiveness of zero covid to produce the lowest rate of infections, no expert would recognize Sweden's approach as being the best strategy, as Denmark, which was one of the first countries to initiate lockdowns, had a lower infection and death rate than Sweden, and Sweden's economy was also hit harder than many other countries, so that is an extremely poor example.

How many millions of Chinese have died from Covid and three years of serious lock-in? Prison-like existence by an oppressive communist dictator.

In addition to the global experts advocating for the effectiveness of zero covid to produce the lowest rate of infections

Those are still exactly zero, you have brought none, just claims that they exist.

no expert would recognize Sweden's approach as being the best strategy

You are the one that called their strategy better than China's because according to you avoiding the unnecessary and damaging lockdowns was an "excellent point". That was the claim I made, which you have made no effort to refute.

Sweden's economy was also hit harder than many other countries

Still deflecting, you have not brought any reference that proves the countries economies have not been affected by the multiple factors that are present now, so the claim that covid is 100% responsible for every country's situation is still baseless.