November 27, 2022
Another quick note at the end of this holiday weekend to mark yet another story that shouldn’t be overlooked:
Protests have broken out across China after the country’s strict zero-Covid policies appear to have delayed firefighters responding to a deadly apartment fire Thursday night in Urumqi, the capital of China’s Xinjiang region, which lies in the country’s vast northwest.
Official reports say at least ten people died and nine others were injured in the fire, and protesters took to the streets in anger at the lockdown and strict testing and quarantine policies the government insists are imperative to protect the country’s vulnerable elderly.
The protests quickly spread to cities around the country and have become political protests against Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who was reelected for an unprecedented third term as head of the Communist Party last month, and against the Communist Party itself. In Shanghai, protesters shouted, “Step down, Xi Jinping! Step down, Communist Party!” In Beijing, university students called for “Democracy and rule of law! Freedom of expression!”
Observers appear to have been surprised both by the rapid spread of the protests and by the relatively restrained response of authorities, who usually crack down on political protest fast and hard. Those observers note that the country’s zero-Covid policy has meant seemingly unending lockdowns, causing extraordinary hardship for ordinary citizens with no end in sight, even as cases in the country are at an all-time high and rising.
China’s approach to Covid has also exacerbated a harsh downturn in the Chinese economy. Its government focused on mass testing and isolation facilities to keep the virus away rather than on effective vaccines and new hospitals to treat those infected, locking itself into a policy that now appears unsustainable.
Observers attribute the protests to frustration over the lockdowns, concern over the economy, and even the World Cup, which has given the Chinese audience a look at more open and free societies outside China.
While these protests are unusual because of the many different factions that are working together—workers, students, rural protesters, and so on—scholars of China say it is far too early to make predictions about what will come next.
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Notes:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/26/china/china-protests-xinjiang-fire-shanghai-intl-hnk
https://www.reuters.com/markets/asia/global-markets-view-asia-graphic-pix-2022-11-27/
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-63772365
https://www.reuters.com/markets/asia/china-jan-oct-industrial-profits-fall-30-yy-2022-11-27/
https://www.dw.com/en/china-nationwide-protests-call-for-easing-of-covid-curbs/a-63904684
Last night my wife and I attended a guided tour of an exhibition of contemporary works by Ukrainian artists. It was held in an abandoned automobile showroom next to the city’s largest cemetery here in Cologne. At the end, we went outside to another building that housed a huge video screen on which President Zelenskiy spoke of the trials and suffering of the Ukrainian population at the hands of Russia.
The screen was composed of roughly 50 boxes each of which flashed with images too horrific to be shown as stills. Each image remained on the screen for one second, two at most. They were each so horrid, so painful, so graphic that the effect was quickly overwhelming and I had to turn away. The Germans in the room did not.
The artworks in the main building provoked contemplation – they were images and sculptures of the type one is accustomed to seeing in a museum or collection, political, yes, but familiar in their forms and methods.
The immense screen of suffering and carnage housed in the smaller, darker building was aggressively confrontational – heartbreaking, provocative, undeniable – real to the point of pain, washed as it was in the blood and tears of Ukrainian citizens.
And their suffering continues, even as we stood before that screen we knew, all of us gathered there, that this was happening now, even as I turned away to walk out into the cold, wet night there was no turning away for the millions who last night, today, tomorrow, face the relentless pounding horror being visited upon them by Russia, the madman Putin, and those across the globe who give him aid and comfort.
Will those who make this killing possible, as many Germans did immediately following World War Two, assert they did not know or could not resist, the extermination of millions by their government?
Last night, in this German city that welcomed Adolf Hitler in March of 1936 as he marched across the Rhine with 20,000 soldiers to reclaim authority over the Rhineland, an act he was forbidden by treaty from doing, one can well imagine these children and grandchildren of those who stood and cheered the Nazi soldiers as they crossed the river, recognized what is happening in Ukraine for what it is.
Professor Timothy Snyder has organized a fundraiser to provide air defense against the Iranian-made Drones bombing Ukrainian cities. It is called, Shahed Hunter, and can be found here: https://u24.gov.ua/shahedhunter
This article explains the project in more detail: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/28/russia-wins-by-losing-timothy-snyder-on-raising-funds-for-ukrainian-drone-defence
Thank you for taking time from your holiday weekend to acknowledge the plight of the long suffering Chinese people. They have the right to be heard -- to cry out from the depths of totalitarian control and abuse.