Irish Examiner View: Covid lockdown protests in China could turn into chaos

China’s public have failed to get on board with the Government's zero-Covid approach, and the protests are growing in size.

Chinese police officers block off access to a site where protesters had gathered in Shanghai last Sunday. Picture: AP

There is a sense of deja vu about the growing protests across China against their government’s ‘zero-Covid’ policy as citizens in multiple cities vent their frustration and anger at the restrictions being imposed on their lives. 

The fear is that this will not end well for the demonstrators.

In what has been an extraordinary wave of civil disobedience throughout the country, ordinary people, exasperated by frequent government lockdowns and frequent mass testing, took to the streets of cities such as Shanghai, Beijing, Nanjing, Chengdu, Lanzhou and, ironically, Wuhan, to protest. 

There have already been clashes with police in Shanghai, and in Wuhan, pandemic barriers have been pushed over. It is possible the authorities will show some understanding to people’s weariness of official policy, but as the demonstrations morph into demands for democracy and press freedom, government attitudes can be expected to harden.

Protesters hold up blank white papers yesterday during a commemoration for victims of a recent Urumqi apartment deadly fire blamed on the rigid anti-virus measures in Central in Hong Kong. Picture: Zen Soo/AP

That these are the worst public shows of opposition to officialdom since Chinese Communist Party leader and president of the People’s Republic Xi Jinping took power nearly two decades ago is a concern and — as past protests have illustrated — the country’s leaders are not inclined to put up with such dissent.

Protesters will know they are putting themselves in extraordinary danger but, truthfully, the expected official crackdowns will be severe and vindictive. Observers reckon the current wave of protests are unlike anything seen since the tragic Tiananmen Square crackdown on students in 1989.

Protests in China are not rare, but the scale of the current ones and their widespread nature most certainly are. 

However, the seeming lack of any coherent government plan to eradicate Covid has led to massive, if understandable, civilian unrest. 

The Chinese government has failed to get its citizenry onside with zero-Covid, but continues to pursue the policy almost three years on from its discovery. 

It is now paying the price and, as onlookers, we can only hope the situation does not descend into total chaos, especially given what we have seen happen there before.