Science fiction is becoming science fact as the Chinese Communist Party used sophisticated surveillance technology to crush the anti-Zero Covid protests. The Telegraph has more.
Many of the protesters were understandably oblique. Some held up blank sheets of paper. Others displayed an exclamation mark on a red background – the symbol of a message that can’t be delivered on WeChat, China’s main messaging platform. One woman brought a pair of alpacas, the physical manifestation of an online meme based on the Mandarin for “grass mud horse” – cào nǐ mā – sounding like an insult that urges the subject to perform an unspeakable act on their mother.
But a few brave protesters were more direct. When police told those gathered in Beijing not to complain about lockdown, the crowd deployed sarcasm to demand more frequent Covid tests. Some even dared to chant slogans specifically denouncing the Chinese Communist Party and calling for President Xi Jinping himself to go. They will have done so in the full and certain knowledge that they were being watched and recorded by the state’s hyper-sophisticated surveillance apparatus and in all likelihood had already been identified by the authorities.
The spark for the wave of protests that has swept across China in recent days was a fire in an apartment building in Urumqi in the far-western province of Xinjiang on November 24 that killed ten people. Many blamed the government’s strict zero Covid policies for hampering the response of fire services in tackling a blaze and adding to the death toll. By last weekend the protests had spread across the country, with thousands gathering in Beijing, Shanghai, Urumqi and other major cities.
Protests in China are not quite as rare as one might perhaps assume. Between May this year and November 22nd, before the latest wave of dissent, there were 822 protests around the country, according to China Dissent Monitor, a database run by the US think tank Freedom House. But most have been small-scale, isolated and focused on important but tangential issues such as frustrations around the country’s struggling property sector. The latest protests have been much larger, more widespread and taken aim directly at the heart of the government and its signature policies.
Sam Olsen, the head of the Evenstar Institute, a strategic intelligence and political risk firm focused on China, says that “every dynasty” in Chinese history has been plagued by unrest. The difference with the latest demonstrations is that they have been nationwide and, in common with the student protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989, the authorities haven’t been able to keep them under wraps.
They have also simultaneously occurred on the ground and in cyberspace. Reports suggest there have been so many posts about the protests on WeChat that censors have at times been overwhelmed.
The onset of Covid meant that the Chinese population, in common with those in other countries around the world, was initially prepared to tolerate even greater curtailment of their freedoms in order to combat the virus. Drivers still have to scan a code held up by a drone in order to enter cities; once inside everyone must produce their phones at the many checkpoints and display a green QR code.
However, acceptance of this way of life is waning as the pandemic drags into a fourth year. Residents in Chengdu, a city of 22 million people, were barred from leaving their flats in September even when an earthquake hit. Many people are upset they have been unable to earn a living even as the price of food spirals. This was all tolerable while the virus was kept under control perhaps. But now Covid is spreading and the death toll is rising.
“Despite their relatively small size, it is notable that protests and expressions of dissent are happening both online and offline, and in very different parts of the country,” says Katja Drinhausen of the Mercator Institute for China Studies.
“While protesters mainly raise livelihood issues, they also target a key policy adopted by the central government [zero Covid] and in some cases systemic issues, such as lack of respect for freedom of expression, rule of law and individual human rights.”
Back in 2011 the Arab Spring was spreading fast through the Middle East and North Africa and social media was thought to be fanning the flames of democracy. The still nascent technology helped demonstrators to organise and bypass the traditional gatekeepers of information to broadcast their messages to the world. The names of Twitter and Facebook were written on placards and daubed on walls by protesters.
At one point the Egyptian autocrat Hosni Mubarak cut off internet and mobile phone service in the country in order to try and regain control. The move backfired, focusing global attention on what was happening.
But the great hope that the internet and new technology would help protesters shake off authoritarian shackles proved to be short lived. When Mubarak fell and a military council replaced him, it opened a Facebook page as the main outlet for its communiqués. When Jair Bolsonaro was elected president of Brazil in 2019, the crowds chanted ‘Facebook! Facebook! WhatsApp! WhatsApp!’ at his inauguration, such was the perceived importance of social media in sweeping the right-wing populist to power.
As the Chinese government faces its toughest political test since 1989 there are fresh questions over whether technology can be a means for protesters to circumvent state control or the boot heel under which the government will crush dissent. The Chinese population has arguably never been so angry about being watched and living in an “invisible cage” but, equally, it has never been watched more closely.
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Maybe one thing we’re learning from the covid years (and their aftermath of net zero etc.) is that freedom comes from within, from freedom of thought, and when there are sufficient people with freedom of thought you have true societal freedom.
It’s been touch and go here in the West, and I wouldn’t say that freedom has won yet. Too many of our society are simply too intellectually bone idle to think for themselves, and they’re dragging the rest of us down with them.
Maybe China is stepping gingerly the right way. You have to admire those protestors. They’ve put their lives on the line almost literally, and at least are maybe now waiting for the knock on the door. We had it pretty easy here by comparison. You could be the only person in Tesco without a mask and everyone simply averted their eyes. And if you actually got fined you didn’t have to pay knowing pretty well that the thing would lapse in 6 months anyway.
And still very few of our society stood out against the attacks on their freedom. As if they’d lost the will to live as independent human beings. As I say, it’s touch and go here – could go either way.
I admire your optimism. I don’t believe it’s touch and go in the West at all; I think that we are in a minority and that the majority are about as free thinking as a broom handle. When they come for us, which they will again, our line will be the only thing that stands in the way of the precipice. We can only hope that our actions will embolden others. This is undoubtedly my hill.
I don’t think the free-thinkers have to be in an absolute majority. I reckon 20% would do it, easily. I always. said that if merely 20% of people had refused to wear masks the whole charade would have collapsed there and then.
I think that’s a good point. The majority of people are followers. They just need to be persuaded to follow the right crowd.
We’re into Desmet territory here of course, and it’s difficult to speculate on absolute figures or percentages.
But my feel is that the percentage of free thinkers can actually be remarkably low for them to carry their case.
Yeah, the only way of bringing the NPC cattle around is using the same tactics that captured them. Once there’s the critical mass of realisation the rest will follow – as in their namesake. The “authorities” know this of course so continue to indoctrinate the masses, whilst simultaneously blocking any attempt to shock them out of it. Precisely why we should be all-in on the freedom of speech issue to level the playing field (granted I’m singing to the choir here but for anyone else reading who might be momentarily swayed by their enacting censorship under the guise of…. whatever).
very few of our society stood out against the attacks on their freedom. As if they’d lost the will to live as independent human beings
maybe 10-30% fought against the fascism. Now the Ronatards are in admiration of the people rising up against the CCP tyranny. For 2.5 yrs they screamed that anyone in the UK who dissented from the narrative should be imprisoned, condemned, tortured, ended.
But they see no irony or hypocrisy, because after all, they are the ‘science’. And when the fascists lock down for the climate-thingy-next scariant-caused by warmtarding-they will happily travel back to 2020 and scream support for lockdowns, camps, forced injections etc.
I would put it right at the lower end of ’10-30%’, and probably even lower. I seemed to be either alone or in about 1% of people around me not wearing a mask, and saying the whole thing was bollocks.
And of course it’s easy cheering from the sidelines at the freedom fighters in China standing up for their rights. A different matter to having to put your own head above the parapet and take some small risk for what’s right. And of course in the cowardly logic which inhabits such minds it’s easy enough to find the justifications for such rank hypocrisy.
Definitely. Same here. I was marching in Hyde Park with Piers and 70? others in March 2020. I went to every protest, every march I could. I never wore a diaper, scorned the jabs as pharma poison and told anyone who would listen that it was medical Nazism and the end of our world. Very few gave a shat. Most thought I was just another looney nutbar. Until the whack job con theories starting coming true…including the dead from the stabs. But the Rona religious don’t care. Rona proved to me that 80% of the pop are stupid.
Untested. Untraced. Unmasked. Unjabbed. That’s the TJN household.
Didn’t go on any demos though – bit difficult from down here in rural Devon with small children. Do feel I missed out by not going on one of those London marches.
Something I’ve never understood about China and their social credit system, or gotten around to finding out, is what if you haven’t got a mobile phone? It’s the phones that are the main way of controlling people, right? So how on earth do the authorities ensure every single person has an expensive phone and contract, even poor people? And given the vast amount of surveillance cameras everywhere, what about people living in the outskirts and remote villages? And what happens if you’re in a village and have no reception for your phone anyway? And how would these people be surveilled if they can’t put cameras everywhere? It’s surely easier to be anonymous outside of the cities, and also self-sufficient, therefore less easily controlled and watched. Anyway, if anyone can fill in the blanks I’d appreciate it.
I’ve wondered this too… I suspect ‘they’ just limit the necessities to the sub-urban and country regions, limiting growth anyway. That’s the only thing I can think. Or having something similar to the ez pass in new york, stopping people from using the highways. I also sort of suspect that we’re not hearing the full story either way…
Informers at every level of the bureaucracy? The CCP version of the Political Officers in the USSR armed forces. We’ve seen how many people loved to dob their neighbours in it for breaking nonsensical rules in the UK so just imagine how easy it would be for informers to thrive in China.
Never buy an Apple product again, they have actively worked with the Chinese Government to supress dissent, and therby support tyranny and torture of Chinese citizens by its Government. If a Corporation like Apple will do that in China, they will not hesitate to do it for any other Government. The bottom line is more imprtant to the CEO of Apple than the lives and rights of ordinary people,
vote with your pocket, don’t buy from them,
Aren’t all mobile manufacturers and associated tech services supporting China or reliant on them for in one way or the other? Which mobile, laptop, search engine, OS to use?
Samsung aren’t
Those with long memories may recall a poster called Biker, who could be very straight talking at times. I recall him saying similar about using Apple appliances, and someone pointing out that he was posting off an Apple (he’d alluded to it previously). He had a right go at them.
I’m posting off an Apple btw. Can’t stand them as a corporation, the more so after their rigorous attitude towards masking in their shops.
But what do you do? Everything’s tainted.
The WEF are watching China and instead of being repulsed, they are fascinated and want to replicate it.
We’ve been warned: if we don’t stop them now, it will only get harder.
Oh, we’re well on the way. In my nearest town – small, rural, sleepy – multiple new street cameras appeared during lockdown and ‘smart’ junctions are currently being put in. On the one recently completed, I counted at least 18 cameras, all pitched at different angles (face, numberplate, etc). An ATM has recently been removed and the remaining ones occasionally run out of cash. There have been 3 new mobile masts put up locally in the last year alone. So there’s plenty of money for control and compliance, eh Klaus?
“cameras appeared during lockdown and ‘smart’ junctions are currently being put in.”
I have stated frequently on here that £37 billion on Track and Trace was spent on traffic infrastructure.
I have just noticed that in the headline picture the two people behind the principal subject are European – the girl in the mask and the unmasked guy behind her recording via his ‘phone.
Stock photo?