Protesters to China’s Tyrants: ‘Communist Party, Step Down!’

On Thursday, November 25, 2022, ten people were killed and nine more were injured in a fire in a residential tower in Urumqi, a city in China’s Xinjiang province.¹ Although such fires are common in China (thirty-eight people died in another fire in Anyang just three days earlier), the Urumqi fire exposed the human cost of China’s unjust “zero-COVID” policy and precipitated some of the most overt antigovernment protests China has seen in decades.

At the time of the fire, Urumqi was under strict lockdown. Residents were permitted to leave only for short periods to shop for groceries, and local authorities controlled when they could go. To enforce the policy, authorities installed fences around residential buildings and sometimes locked the gates outside of these time frames. “Residents don’t dare to go downstairs without permits,” one said, “as it will violate the law even if the building gate is not locked.” As the Urumqi fire blazed, the fencing around the building locked residents in and firefighters out.²

Chinese citizens have endured nearly three years of authoritarian COVID restrictions. Cities are subjected to snap lockdowns when a single case is detected; businesses are forced to close, and residents are shut in their homes. In January 2022, as China hosted the Winter Olympics, people in Xi’an were locked in their homes with dwindling supplies, with some bartering their cellphones for food.³ More recently, as Chinese state TV broadcast images of unmasked, cheering crowds at the FIFA World Cup in Qatar, viewers stuck in lockdown went to social media to ask if China and Qatar are even “on the same planet.”⁴ In response, the Chinese government censored related social media comments and altered TV coverage to remove footage of the crowds.

In China, criticizing the government often results in arrest, beating, and imprisonment. It is understandable, therefore, that few people have been willing to stand up against the Chinese government’s authoritarian response to COVID-19. But the Urumqi fire inspired people to do more.

In the days following, thousands of ordinary people took to the streets in cities across the country to protest the lockdowns. But the protests quickly went beyond this issue and took aim at the government’s many other rights violations. At Beijing’s Tsinghua University, students chanted, “Democracy and rule of law, freedom of expression.” In several cities, crowds chanted, “Xi Jinping, step down! Communist Party, step down!” This followed Xi securing reelection as Communist Party leader for an unprecedented third term in office. He subsequently filled the ruling Politburo with men loyal to him, signaling that his policies, including “zero-COVID” and crackdowns on dissidents, likely will continue with even less resistance from Xi’s opponents within the government.⁵

Criticisms of Xi and calls for democracy were, until recently, commonly heard in notionally independent Hong Kong, but to hear such language in mainland China is remarkable. These protesters are taking a massive risk in a country that still executes some eight thousand people per year.⁶ Those who recall the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre are well aware of how bloody the government’s crackdowns on protests can be.

The reaction to the current protests from police and security forces has been consistent with this track record. Police arrested mourners at a vigil in Urumqi and even arrested BBC and Reuters journalists covering protests in other cities. Officers clad in biohazard gear beat protesters with truncheons in Zhengzhou.⁷ Protesters risk not only jail time but physical injury or death every time they take to the streets. They even risk punishment for “liking” footage of the protests on social media.⁸

China’s freedom fighters deserve tremendous praise and support for their brave resistance. They have a long and difficult fight ahead, but these demonstrations are the latest of many signs that China’s communist regime could be headed toward collapse. The regime’s saber rattling over Taiwan, its internment and abuse of China’s Uighur Muslim population, and its crackdown on pro-freedom protests in Hong Kong have caused Western companies to curtail business and investments in China, harming an economy already reeling from the effects of frequent, heavy COVID lockdowns. Further, after years of government-directed home building, the country suffered a severe property market collapse in 2021, leaving entire new districts standing empty and half-completed buildings facing demolition.⁹ Lax safety standards and government cover-ups have made disasters commonplace, from factory fires and building collapses to man-made landslides and massive explosions.¹⁰ From the outside, the Chinese communist regime may appear strong and undefeatable, but the same was true of the Soviet Union right up to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Although governments all over the world violated their citizens’ rights with COVID lockdowns, the lockdowns in China have been particularly crushing for ordinary people and businesses, reflecting the regime’s lack of regard for individual lives. The fact that this is still happening in China months after even the strictest Western countries lifted all COVID measures signals its leaders’ desperation to appear as if they have the pandemic under control—and always have.

Kudos to the protesters in China. Their bravery is phenomenal. Imagine the beautiful lives the hardworking people of China could live if this regime collapsed, and they were left free to think, produce, and trade.

About Thomas Walker-Werth

Thomas Walker-Werth is associate editor at The Objective Standard and a fellow at both Objective Standard Institute and Foundation for Economic Education. He is currently writing his first full-length book, Reason for Living: A Rational, Fact-Based Approach to Living Your Best Life. See more of his work at walker-werth.com.

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