Hundreds gather for fresh protest in Shanghai: Witness, footage

SHANGHAI - Hundreds of people gathered in downtown Shanghai on Sunday afternoon to hold what appeared to be a silent protest near where a demonstration against China’s zero-Covid-19 policy erupted in the early hours, an eyewitness told AFP.

Demonstrators holding blank pieces of paper and white flowers stood silently at several intersections, the person said under condition of anonymity, before police officers eventually moved to clear the blocked roads.

Residents in several Chinese cities, many of them angered by

a deadly fire in the country’s far west,

are pushing back against heavy Covid-19 curbs nearly three years into the pandemic.

A fire on Thursday that killed 10 people in a high-rise building in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang region,

has sparked widespread public anger.

Many Internet users surmised that residents could not escape in time because the building was partially locked down, which city officials denied.

In Shanghai, China’s most populous city and financial hub, residents gathered on Saturday night at the city’s Wulumuqi Road - which borrows its name from Urumqi - for a vigil that turned into a protest in the early hours of Sunday.

“Lift lockdown for Urumqi, lift lockdown for Xinjiang, lift lockdown for all of China!” the crowds in Shanghai shouted, according to a video circulated on social media.

At one point a large group began shouting, “Down with the Chinese Communist Party, down with Xi Jinping, free Urumqi!”, according to witnesses and videos, in a rare public protest against the Chinese leadership.

A large group of police looked on and sometimes tried to break up the crowd.

China is battling a surge in infections that has prompted lockdowns and other restrictions in cities across the country as Beijing adheres to a

zero-Covid-19 policy

even as much of the world tries to coexist with the coronavirus.

China defends President Xi Jinping’s signature zero-Covid-19 policy as life-saving and necessary to prevent overwhelming the healthcare system.

Officials have vowed to continue with it despite the growing public pushback and its mounting toll on the world’s second-biggest economy.

Videos from Shanghai widely shared on Chinese social media showed crowds facing dozens of police and calling out chants including: “Serve the people”, “We don’t want health codes” and “We want freedom”.

Some social media users posted screenshots of street signs for Wulumuqi Road, both to evade censors and show support for protesters in Shanghai. Others shared comments or posts calling for all of “you brave young people” to be careful. Many included advice on what to do if police came or started arresting people during a protest or vigil.

Anger nationwide

Shanghai’s 25 million people were put under lockdown for two months earlier this year, an ordeal that provoked anger and protest.

Chinese authorities have since then sought to be more targeted in their Covid-19 curbs.

But that effort has been challenged by a surge in infections as China faces its first winter with the highly transmissible Omicron variant.

There was one new death, versus none a day earlier, raising the total number of fatalities to 5,233.

While low by global standards, China’s case numbers have hit record highs for days.

The country reported its fourth straight daily record with 39,791 new Covid-19 infections on Nov 26, the National Health Commission said on Sunday.

Of this number, 3,709 were symptomatic and 36,082 were asymptomatic.

That is compared with

35,183 new cases a day earlier

– 3,474 symptomatic and 31,709 asymptomatic infections, which China counts separately.

As of Nov 26, mainland China had confirmed 307,802 cases with symptoms.

The cities of Chongqing and Guangzhou are reporting the bulk of new infections.

Chongqing, a south-western city of 32 million people, reported 8,861 new locally transmitted Covid-19 infections, up almost 15 per cent from the 7,721 recorded a day before.

Guangzhou, a city in the south of nearly 19 million people, reported a marginal decrease in local cases at 7,412, compared with 7,419 a day before, local authorities said.

Local cases in the Chinese capital Beijing continued to jump, rising 66 per cent to 4,307 cases, compared with 2,595 the previous day, local government data showed.

On Friday night, crowds took to the streets of Urumqi, chanting “End the lockdown!” and pumping their fists in the air after the deadly fire, according to videos circulated on Chinese social media.

Many of Urumqi’s 4 million residents have been under some of the country’s longest lockdowns, barred from leaving their homes

for as long as 100 days.

In Beijing, 2,700km away, some residents under lockdown staged small protests or confronted local officials on Saturday over movement restrictions, with some successfully pressuring them into lifting the curbs ahead of a schedule.

A video shared with Reuters showed Beijing residents in an unidentifiable part of the capital marching around an open-air carpark on Saturday, shouting “End the lockdown!”

The Beijing government did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday.

The next few weeks could be the worst in China since the early weeks of the pandemic both for the economy and the healthcare system, Mark Williams of Capital Economics said in note last week, as efforts to contain the outbreak will require additional localised lockdowns in many cities. AFP, REUTERS