Tag: Demonstrations, Protests and Riots

The Chinese Dream, Denied

Chin@Strategy

The narrow alleyways of Haizhu district have long beckoned to China’s strivers, people like Xie Pan, a textile worker from a mountainous tea-growing area in central China. Home to one of the country’s biggest fabric markets, Haizhu houses worker dormitories and textile factories in brightly colored buildings stacked so close that neighbors can shake hands out their windows. Once a smattering of rural villages, the area became a manufacturing hub as China opened its economy decades ago. The government had promised to step back and let people unleash their ambitions,…

Elon’s Two-Day War with Apple + How to Beat an A.I. Censor + S.B.F.’s ‘Bad Month’

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Listen and follow ‘Hard Fork’Apple | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon | Google Elon Musk accuses Apple of trying to sabotage Twitter. But after his visit with Apple’s C.E.O., Tim Cook, things are … good? Then, the New York Times reporter Paul Mozur on the tactics Chinese protesters are deploying to avoid the most sophisticated censorship apparatus in the world. Plus: S.B.F. says it’s been a “bad month.” Credits “Hard Fork” is hosted by Kevin Roose and Casey Newton and produced by Davis Land. The show is edited by Paula…

How China’s Police Used Phones and Faces to Track Protesters

Chin@Strategy

On Sunday, when Mr. Zhang went to protest China’s strict Covid policies in Beijing, he thought he came prepared to go undetected. He wore a balaclava and goggles to cover his face. When it seemed that plainclothes police officers were following him, he ducked into the bushes and changed into a new jacket. He lost his tail. That night, when Mr. Zhang, who is in his 20s, returned home without being arrested, he thought he was in the clear. But the police called the next day. They knew he had…

China Appears to Loosen Covid Rules After Protests

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In the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, residents returned to work on Thursday for the first time in weeks after Covid-19 lockdowns were lifted. In Chongqing, in the southwest, some residents were no longer required to take regular Covid tests. And in Beijing, a senior health official played down the severity of current Omicron variants, a rare move for the government. The developments suggest that the ruling Communist Party may be starting to back down on unpopular Covid restrictions in response to a wave of mass protests that have been…

After Xi’s Coronation, a Roar of Discontent Against His Hard-Line Politics

Chin@Strategy

Striding out to speak to the Chinese nation just under six weeks ago, Xi Jinping, exuded regal dominance. He had just won what was likely to be another decade in power. His new team of subordinates stood out as unbending loyalists. A Communist Party congress had cemented his authoritarian agenda and promised a “new era” when China’s 1.4 billion people would stay in ever-loyal step with him and the party. But a nationwide surge of protest has sent a stunning sign that even after one decade under Mr. Xi’s rule,…

China’s Covid revolt

Chin@Strategy

The broadest and boldest surge of protests in a generation is sweeping China, as people in cities across the country take to the streets to denounce the government’s inflexible and exhausting Covid measures. Last night, in the southern city of Guangzhou, workers and residents resisting a Covid lockdown tore down barricades and threw bottles at riot police. They pushed over a makeshift hut used for Covid tests, while hundreds of onlookers roared in approval. Videos showed hundreds of police officers subduing residents. For more on the protests, I connected with…

Xi Jinping Faces Another Dilemma: How to Mourn Jiang Zemin

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The deaths of Chinese Communist leaders are always fraught moments of political theater, and especially so now with the passing of Jiang Zemin soon after a wave of public defiance on a scale unseen since Mr. Jiang came to power in 1989. China’s sternly autocratic current leader, Xi Jinping, must preside over the mourning for Mr. Jiang, who died on Wednesday at 96, while he also grapples with widespread protests against China’s exceptionally stringent Covid-19 restrictions. The demonstrations have at times also boldly called for China to return to the…

Migrant Workers Fuel Protests Over China’s ‘Zero Covid’ Restrictions

Chin@Strategy

The Haizhu District of Guangzhou, where the clashes took place, is a center of garment production, and tens of thousands of migrant workers from rural China make a living in small factories, shops and diners that cram its streets. But there and across much of China, Covid restrictions on work and travel have added to a wider economic slowdown and pushed many small businesses into closure or bankruptcy, leaving migrant workers struggling to make a living. “People don’t have anywhere to vent their frustration,” said a local resident surnamed Hu,…

What It’s Like Inside One of China’s Protests

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Vivian Wang contributed reporting. The Daily is made by Lisa Tobin, Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Dave Shaw, Sydney Harper, Robert Jimison, Mike Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano, Corey Schreppel, Anita Badejo, Rob Szypko, Elisheba Ittoop, Chelsea Daniel, Mooj Zadie, Patricia Willens, Rowan Niemisto, Jody Becker, Rikki Novetsky, John Ketchum, Nina Feldman,…

The Long Odds Facing China’s Protesters

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Still, without some of China’s elite breaking with Mr. Xi to support the protesters, William Hurst, a Northwestern University scholar, wrote on Twitter, “the most likely scenario I can see is that the protests fizzle out (as most such movements do in most countries).” Understand the Protests in China “Having erupted spontaneously in a short period,” predicted Mr. Hurst, who studies Chinese social movements, “they will fade away without reaching any climax or denouement.” Protests’ Waning Power Throughout most of the 20th century, mass protests seeking a change in government…