Footage shows banners with protest messages from an overpass on a main highway in Beijing.
A rare protest against the Communist Party in Beijing and fears of new Covid restrictions in Shanghai are stoking political tensions days before President Xi Jinping secures a third term at a key assembly on Sunday.
On Thursday, at least a dozen images and videos appeared on social media, showing two banners with protest messages on an overpass on a major thoroughfare in the northwest corner of the Chinese capital. Photos show plumes of smoke billowing from the bridge.
“We need food, PCR tests. We need freedom, confinement. We need respect, lies. We need reforms, a cultural revolution. We need a vote, a leader. We need to be citizens, slaves,” reads a banner hanging over the Sitong Bridge, a viaduct on Beijing’s third ring road in Haidian district.
A banner at one point called for a boycott of the movements and Xi’s ouster. Bloomberg reported seeing burn marks on the bridge where videos showed a burning fireplace and verified the position of road signs that appeared in the photos.
Such an ambitious act of protest is very rare in China, especially before a politically sensitive event, and would indeed anger key leaders and end up with dire consequences for protesters. The police did everything possible in a “100-day operation” to thwart any possible social unrest that could disrupt an elegant transition of the reshuffling of the leadership at the 20th party congress.
Meanwhile, a rollout of Covid restrictions in Shanghai has fueled fears that the city is heading towards lockdown as officials seek to involve outbreaks ahead of the congress.
Shanghai residents, who suffered a tumultuous two-month lockdown this year, reported sudden citywide lockdowns this week, with several schools switching to online classes. At least 46 buildings or residential spaces had been designated as medium threat and one as high threat in 14 of Shanghai’s 16 districts, local media reported. Several districts have also closed entertainment and sports venues, and all new arrivals will be required to undergo testing within 24 hours, the government said Sunday.
The city government said there will be no upcoming school closures or mass closures, but word-of-mouth reports of small localized restrictions, fence construction and instant lockdowns that trap other people in the house or other construction add to unease. On social media, some citizens complained about the closure of chimney and animal exhausts that were left uncared for after owners were quarantined. Others shared information about store closures and unreported construction in the past.
Shanghai on Wednesday recorded only 3 transmitted cases and 44 asymptomatic cases. All tested positive while already in centralized quarantine facilities, and have added a total of 1173 cases, 83% of them asymptomatic, since July.
Since Monday, China’s fitness commission has reported 1120 cases shown and 4202 asymptomatic cases. Most were recorded in Xinjiang, which has had serious lockdown restrictions in recent months.
At least 36 Chinese villages in 31 provinces were under varying degrees of lockdown this week, affecting some 197 million people, according to monitors.
Across China, others have been prevented from returning to Beijing after the Golden Week holiday through alerts warning that they “may have a temporal and spatial relationship with an epidemic threat. “The blockades raised the hypothesis that it would reduce the threat of an outbreak in Beijing at this weekend’s party congress.
Other Chinese cities have higher tests, closing tourist sites and halting public transport. Shenzhen, which reported 33 cases on Wednesday, ordered testing for all arrivals for 3 days, while in Beijing, lockers carrying tens of thousands of employees from Tianjin and Hebei were suspended.
In the city of Zhengzhou, Henan, where 12 cases were reported, all citizens will have to be tested every 24 hours to be able to take public transport or enter public spaces, and in Guangzhou, where 10 cases were reported, the government has introduced a crusade of mass testing and a partial closure of at least one neighborhood.
The number of cases in China is low by global standards, however, the government pledged to put in place a “dynamic zero” Covid strategy to contain and get rid of any and all outbreaks. The policy was a success for much of the pandemic, however, it was challenged by the maximum transmissibility of the new variants, and the risk of sudden lockdowns and restrictions began to aggravate citizens.
“Is there more unlucky than me?” said one user who recently arrived in Zhengzhou. “I lived through the blockade of Xi’an, the blockade of Shanghai, and now it is Zhengzhou, please!”
In consecutive days of politics this week, state media have defended the desire for all citizens to stick to politics, saying it is the only way to avoid massive loss of life and a fight for medical resources. The article was widely shared with millions of people. Views, however, thousands of comments were censored, leading some readers to joke about implementing “dynamic zero” for comment sections.
Additional Reporting Through Chi Hui Lin