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Image showing several police officers watching a group of protesters in Shanghai who are protesting against China's restrictive policies against Covid.

Deadly fire in China sparks never-before-seen nationwide protests against 'covid zero' policy

The death of 10 people in the fire in an apparently confined building in the Chinese city of Urumqi (northwest) last Thursday has sparked citizen protests against the 'covid zero' policy implemented by Xi Jinping in the country and the Communist Party, that this weekend has spread to major cities such as Beijing, Shanghai or Nanjing.

Although the Chinese authorities have been quick to deny it, videos and testimonies circulating on social networks show how some inhabitants are defying the strict policy against the coronavirus, movements that some witnesses interviewed by the US network CNN describes as "unprecedented".

The outrage unleashed on the censored Chinese internet has been transformed since Saturday into vigils in memory of the victims who, according to some commentators, spent the last 100 days of their lives confined to their homes. In Shanghai, hundreds of university students have lit candles to mourn the dead and held up blank sheets of paper, a common symbol in protests against censorship.

While the official press does not report the incidents, some recordings have shown how dozens of people ripped off the fences with which the authorities close the confined housing estates in the vast residential complex of Tiantongyuan, in the north of Beijing, sometimes described as by the Chinese media as the largest in Asia, with some 700,000 residents.

The Chinese capital, especially shielded against outbreaks since 2020, is now experiencing its highest levels of infections: according to the latest official report, this Saturday more than 4,300 new cases were detected, of which 82% are asymptomatic, according to infection standards. the health authorities.

Critical vigil in Shanghai

These figures, low by international standards, but intolerable for the Chinese authorities, have resulted in restrictions and confinements that affect a large part of the capital's population, as has already happened this year in other parts of the country such as the aforementioned Urumqi or the eastern megalopolis of Shanghai, which experienced harsh confinement this year that lasted for more than two months in some areas.

Precisely in that city, and precisely on Urumqi street, hundreds of people gathered this Saturday night to celebrate a vigil in memory of those who died in the fire that passed in a mostly peaceful manner, according to testimonies on networks, among which some They claim that arrests were made.

The recordings show groups of protesters chanting "Those who refuse to be slaves, rise up" —a stanza from the Chinese national anthem— or The Internationale, shouting "we want freedom", "we don't want to take PCR tests" or "fuck them QR codes", referring to the obligation to scan the health QR codes with a mobile application at the entrance of any establishment or even in parks so that, when the authorities detect a contagion, they can determine who has had contact with that person in every moment.

At one point in the night, a group of people even chanted "Down with the Communist Party, down with Xi Jinping," a rare public display of disapproval of the country's leader's policies.

According to the specialized portal What's On Weibo, numerous commentators on the Weibo social network —the local equivalent of Twitter, censored in the country— have shown their support for the vigil, but, above all, they have asked the participants to protect themselves, before that the platform's censors prohibited commenting on the label used to talk about the subject.

University protests

That same portal indicates that, at a university in the eastern city of Nanjing, numerous students gathered on campus this Saturday night and turned on the flashlights of their mobile phones as a vigil for those who died in Urumqi.

Meanwhile, at another university, in this case in Xi'an (downtown), a city that has also experienced harsh lockdowns, another group of students have taken to the streets of the campus to show their discontent over the anti-covid lockdowns, which also have been a major drag on the national economy this year.

The Asian giant, practically isolated from the rest of the world since the beginning of 2020, has suffered numerous waves of outbreaks since the beginning of this year attributed to the contagious omicron variant, which has put the national zero-tolerance strategy against the coronavirus in check by causing figures of infections higher than even those at the beginning of the pandemic.

According to data from the National Health Commission, China has broken its record of covid infections for the fourth consecutive day by detecting almost 40,000 new infections (39,791) this Saturday, although more than 90% of them are considered asymptomatic and do not swell the numbers. official balances of confirmed cases.

The institution's figures show that close to 1.8 million people currently remain under quarantine since the guideline involves transferring those infected to hospitals or isolation centers —including those who are asymptomatic— and also, although separately, to the people who have had contact with them.