Draconian lockdowns-triggered protests may dash China's global superpower plan
Dec 02, 2022
Beijing [China], December 2 : The ongoing protests in China over draconian lockdowns and the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) zero covid policy are likely to hinder Xi Jinping's vision to make China a global superpower.
At least a dozen large Chinese cities have experienced a recent upsurge in unrest, which was mostly brought on by dissatisfaction with the government's severe tactics to promptly contain, coronavirus outbreaks, the Washington Post reported.
However, the demonstrations in Beijing and other cities have also highlighted the concern that many people in China are unhappy with President Xi Jinping's broader nationalist worldview, which increasingly places stability and national security above individual liberties.
As per the Washington Post, the United States and other Western nations are frequently portrayed as conspiring to thwart China's ascent in that perspective. The current protests have prompted nationalist commentators to use tried-and-true justifications that the protesters are being led by covert foreign agents.
According to Chenchen Zhang, an assistant professor of international affairs at Durham University in the United Kingdom, citizens' concerns are "nationwide and transcend local, ethnic, and class borders." "People all around the country have firsthand knowledge of the hardship and frustration brought on by zero covid," the Washington Post reported.
The ongoing demonstrations are one of the largest uprisings the communist country has seen since the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement. Additionally, the response intended to disperse the ongoing protesters is probably going to make matters worse.
China is in the middle of some of its fiercest protests against stringent Covid curbs in the country, with many memes, chants and catchphrases going viral.
Several videos circulating on social media have shown crowds chanting the slogan "Communist Party step down, Down with Xi Jinping" in unison over a deadly fire in Urumqi, the capital of China's Xinjiang region that has unleashed excessive public outrage, Inside Over reported.
Thousands of protesters took to the streets of Shanghai, where people were being bundled into police cars. Students have also demonstrated at universities in Beijing and Nanjing.
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.
