Protests have erupted across China, with people chanting “Step down, Xi Jinping! Step down, Communist Party!” in an unprecedented show of defiance.
Locals took to the streets in Beijing, Shanghai and the far western Xinjiang region after at least 10 people were killed in a high-rise residential blaze on Friday. The blaze broke out on the 15th floor and rapidly spread to the higher floors – killing ten people and injuring another nine
The protest was kicked off by angry residents demanding to know if firefighters were delayed from coming inside the apartment block due to a quarantine order enforced by the government.
But they’ve since spread across the country and have become a lot more serious.
From the capital Beijing to financial hub Shanghai, the deaths have led to protests across China and police have descended onto the streets to keep order as tensions boil over.
Protesters in Shanghai stood on police cars and others chanted “we don’t want PCR tests” as a vigil was held in the city for the fire victims on Saturday night.
Many protesters are holding up blank pieces of paper to indicate their anger and have called for President Xi Jinping to resign.
In extraordinary scenes, students at Beijing’s elite Tsinghua University protested by singing the national anthem.
In Wuhan, footage appeared to show raging protesters tearing down barriers as hundreds took to the streets.
There were also protests in Xi’an and Chengdu.
It’s not clear how many people have been arrested across the country.
Chinese internet users claim the locks allegedly used around the block allegedly hindered the fire trucks. Parked cars on the surrounding streets also reportedly delayed the rescuers, many of which were unable to start due to flat batteries from lack of use due to the lockdown period, which has extended for more than 100 days.
It reportedly took three hours for the fire brigade to extinguish the blaze, which started on the 15th floor, with tragic audio circulating that claims to share details of some of the victim’s final moments as they remained stuck inside.
Nine were injured in the blaze, and there are fears the number of deaths could skyrocket to as high as 40.
Li Wensheng, the head of Urumqi’s Fire Rescue Detachment, confirmed to the NY Post that fire trucks had been obstructed by parked cars in the neighbourhood. He also said that fire doors in the building had been open but people were not familiar with the safety exits.
Video circulating on Chinese social media showed protesters in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, chanting “end the lockdown” and “we are human beings” with their fists in the air. It follows more than three months of zero-Covid lockdown.
Footage also shows people in a plaza singing the national anthem of China while waving a flag, particularly the line: “Rise up, those who refuse to be slaves!”
Meanwhile, others shouted they didn’t want lockdowns.
In Beijing’s district of Tiantongyuan, where some 4 million live, locals also took to the streets to tear down iron sheets and signs, amid wild applause. Here, residents have also been banned from leaving their homes for as long as 100 days.
Other videos also show unrest in Shanghai, where citizens chanted “CCP, step down” and “Xi Jinping, step down” in the streets.
Eva Rammeloo, China correspondent for Dutch daily Trouw, was on the scene.
“Never seen anything like this in the decade that I report on China,” she said. “The anger seems too much to crack down on. Wonder what happens next.
“At the south end of the street are still more than a hundred people. They are yelling. ‘We are all Chinese!’
“ … First it was only a few hundred people. But they seem to be coming from far outside the city centre. More than a thousand now, I’m estimating.”
She later tweeted: “More police arrived. They split the crowd and push(ed) it back … Police getting tired now too.
“They divided the crowd in two parts and arrested a few people.”
Then, she heard about the government lifting some restrictions in Urumqi, citing elimination of community transmission of Covid.
“ … People had to burn to death for Urumqi to open up? No. This is the result of angry people taking to the street and protesting.”
It’s clear people in China have had enough of the lockdowns.
“I’ve lived in China for 30 years, and I’ve never seen such a brazenly open and sustained expression of rage against the PRC govt,” local resident David Moser tweeted.
“WeChat is exploding with protest videos and furious vitriol, and civil disobedience is becoming rampant.
“This is a serious test of CCP governance.”
China has long remained committed to its harsh Covid Zero strategy, many months after the rest of the world moved on and reopened after years of uncertainty. As a result, millions of Chinese citizens have faced extraordinary, draconian lockdowns over the course of the pandemic.
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