Chinese authorities are moving to ease strict “zero-Covid” controls, in an apparent response to a nationwide wave of protests that have otherwise been suppressed.
in recent days, with crowds demanding an end to Covid rules that they said contributed to a deadly fire in the western Xinjiang region. Some protesters went further, calling for democratic reforms and even for Xi to step down, in a show of defiance that had not been seen since he came to power in 2012.
Police form a cordon in Beijing on Monday during a protest against China’s strict “zero-Covid” measures.Chinese authorities have mostly stamped out the protests, with heavy police presence at protesters’ former gathering sites. But experts have suggested protesters could find a new focal point in former Chinese President
, whose death at 96 on Wednesday has set off a wave of nostalgia among people who associate him with relatively greater freedom compared with Xi.in 1989 and led China during a decade of breakneck economic growth. A state funeral will be held for him next Tuesday at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, state media reported Thursday, with Xi chairing the funeral committee.
Like other Chinese leaders, Jiang showed little tolerance for dissent, jailing activists and banning the Falun Gong religious movement. But the political environment has greatly tightened under Xi, leading some people in China to reassess Jiang’s legacy. “Now they have pushed people to the edges, to the point I think ‘Toad’ isn’t that bad,” Umi Yang, who is in her 20s and from Beijing, told NBC News on Wednesday, using a nickname for Jiang that derives from his trademark glasses.“I was born in the 1990s,” one user wrote on the social media platform Weibo. “I can’t remember exactly what I did in childhood, but I can remember the color was bright, and it was free and relaxed. RIP Grandpa Jiang.
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