China protests against COVID restrictions, does the agitation pose a threat to CCP?

China is witnessing protests against COVID restrictions in multiple cities. Protestors are demanding that Xi Jinping step down and some are even directly criticising the Communist Party. To understand the extent of COVID restrictions in China, consider China's coverage of the FIFA world cup, which is being broadcasted by China Central Television (CCTV). 

When the FIFA stream shows a visual of the crowd at the stadium celebrating, the CCTV stream covers coaches and players. Why? The reason behind this is the fact that whilst much of the world has moved on from COVID restrictions, China has not and Chinese authorities do not want people in China to see massive crowds in football stadiums, with no masks, sitting close to each other. The fear is that it will add to the frustration of the Chinese, who have been under some form of lockdown since the pandemic began. The lockdowns are not continuous but they do impact the daily lives of a significant number of Chinese citizens. 

Lead up to the current protests 

The frustration against lockdown has been building up for quite some time and a few recent incidents have acted as dry leaves for fire. On September 18, a bus transporting residents from Guiyang to a quarantine camp crashed and resulted in the death of 27 people. Late October, workers at Foxconn's iPhone factory in Zhengzhou left work and walked for miles to escape lockdown measures. 

The temperament of people in China reached a boiling point on November 7 when a 29-year-old girl watched her 55-year-old mother jump from the 12th floor. According to a report from Sixth Tone, the daughter was sending frantic messages on WeChat, pleading with people to open the door of their home, which was welded shut for around a month. The incident occurred in Hohhot, inner Mongolia. An investigation into the incident by authorities claimed that the door was not welded shut.

A few days after the November 7 incident, the State Council issued the 20 Articles. The apparent goal of these Articles was to make COVID control measures more humane. Qiu Jianyin, a mental health professional working in Shanghai said back in April that residents of Shanghai were experiencing a "psychological emergency". Considering the fact that all humans and in fact animals react in the same way to social isolation, it is safe to assume that the COVID restrictions are taking a mental toll on people in other parts of China as well.

On November 14, Xi Jinping and Peng Liyuan landed in Bali to attend the G20 summit. They were not masked, a fact that was noted by many people in China. Soon after, protests erupted in Haizhu District of Guangzhou, after two women were tied, gagged, and put on their knees after they got into an altercation with COVID controllers. The incident that occured on November 24 was the last straw on the camel's back. In a residential building at Urumqi, Xinjiang, 10 people were charred to death, one of whom was a 3-year-old child. These people could not escape because their building was under a lockdown. After the incident, authorities in Urumqi blamed “weak self rescue capability” of the residents during a press conference. After this statement, protests began in Urumqi and soon spread to different regions of the country, be it Beijing, Shanghai, or Xi Jinping's alma mater, Tsinghua University. 

What kind of risk do these protests pose to CCP regime?

Many have equated these protests with the 1989 Tiananmen protests and some are suggesting that it poses a risk to the CCP regime, saying how rare protests in China are. This is inaccurate. Protests are actually not that rare in China. Before Xi Jinping became China's President, China was suffering from deep-rooted corruption which led to mass protests. Xi Jinping was appointed to root out corruption from the CCP and it is because of this reason Xi has been quite popular in China.

Protests in China should not be confused with protests against the CCP's legitimacy, irrespective of what people chant. People protesting against corruption in China were criticising the CCP and the CCP leadership but they did not want CCP to go, they wanted CCP to improve. Protests in Hong Kong and other regions out of mainland China are of a different nature. Protests in mainland China, since 1989, have always been about specific issues and the anger against the party is limited to a specific issue and life goes back to normal when the issue is solved. 

Social movement theorists study protests of all kinds, be it the social movements that led to the American Revolution, the French Revolution, the Islamic Revolution, the Tiananmen protests, or less historical protests like the Yellow Vest protests in France or mining protests in England. Social movements are categorised into 4 types - rational response, state and market, moral outrage, and community justice. The current protests are a mixture of the first and last.

The COVID lockdown measures are problematic but they pale in comparison to what the Chinese have been through, be it the famines that emerged from the Great Leap Forward or the chaos that was unleashed during the Cultural Revolution, during which, Xi's family personally suffered, when his father was humiliated and Xi's elder half-sister took her own life after she was persecuted by the Red Guards. People outside China are seldom aware of this context but it is an essential part of China's historical memory. 

The current lockdowns are of course harsh but they do not pose a threat to the CCP regime's legitimacy as that requires multiple tailwinds. Few remember that the French revolution occurred because of John Law's economic policies and the Mississippi bubble, which led to a decline in the living standards of ordinary French citizens, not due to Marie Antoinette's statement.

The living standards of ordinary Chinese have gone up under the CCP. The protests are serious but they are driven by anger against a specific policy. Although there have been sporadic instances of violence, as of now, the regime's strategy appears to be tiring out the protests instead of cracking down on them harshly. Unless Chinese society witnesses a striking level of decline in living standards or an ideological opposition to the CCP, the regime will remain safe.