China's winter of discontent
The Briefing Room
BBC
4.8 • 731 Ratings
🗓️ 1 December 2022
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Chants of ‘Xi Jinping step down’ were heard on the lips of some demonstrators in China last weekend. A rare example of dissent against the Chinese leader.
The cause of the protestors fury is pretty clear – nearly three years of the government’s zero-Covid policy has proved too much to bear for many Chinese.
The Chinese Communist Party acted quickly by sending police to protest sites and increasing online censorship. But on Tuesday some local health officials began suggesting that they needed to lift lockdowns ‘as quickly as possible’.
Will that be enough to prevent further protests in China, and how will Xi Jinping and his government respond to recent events?
Joining David Aaronovitch in The Briefing Room are:
David Rennie, Beijing bureau chief at The Economist Kerry Allen, Chinese media analyst at BBC News Dr Yu Jie, senior research fellow on China in the Asia-Pacific programme at Chatham House Professor Steven Tsang, director at SOAS China Institute
Producers: Ben Carter, Kirsteen Knight and Daniel Gordon Editor: Simon Watts Studio manager: Graham Puddifoot Production co-ordinators: Siobhan Reed & Helena Warwick-Cross
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. I'm David Oronovich. Welcome to the briefing room, the space in the metaverse, where you, me, the top experts, and a big subject get together for 28 minutes. This week, what are we to make of what's been going on in China, where anti-lockdown protests have turned political. |
| 0:28.7 | China is one of the few countries in the world that still has a zero COVID policy. |
| 0:34.6 | Back in the spring, the briefing room discussed how that policy was causing all kinds of problems. |
| 0:40.3 | And then, last weekend, there was an eruption of public protests across the country against the incredibly strict lockdowns. |
| 0:43.7 | And some of these protests became overtly political. |
| 0:47.8 | So, has the Chinese government, and its all-powerful leader Xi Jinping, |
| 0:52.8 | overestimated its ability both to control the virus |
| 0:55.9 | and to control its people. |
| 0:58.7 | Step inside the briefing room and together we'll find out. |
| 1:05.0 | First, let's understand a little more about the protest |
| 1:08.0 | that we watched on our TV screens. |
| 1:11.1 | Joining me in the briefing room is David Rennie, |
| 1:13.3 | Beijing Bureau Chief at The Economist. |
| 1:15.9 | David Rennie, what prompted last weekend's process? |
| 1:19.0 | It's a real frustration about the lockdowns and the controls of zero COVID. |
| 1:24.3 | And I think what's really striking about these protests |
| 1:26.7 | is that some of them were |
| 1:28.8 | kind of very political, and you saw these extraordinarily rare and dangerous slogans about |
| 1:33.3 | to down with the Communist Party. But I think we need to understand that that was only a very small |
| 1:37.6 | part of it. And actually, in some ways, the real threat to the leadership here is how broad-based |
| 1:43.0 | the frustration is. And so you're seeing |
| 1:45.8 | worker protests about people who are worried about cases in their factory, climbing fences to |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.