The outrage over ‘zero covid’ in China
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 28 November 2022
⏱️ 22 minutes
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Summary
For the first time in decades, massive protests broke out in cities across China. Today on “Post Reports” — what's behind the protests and what they mean for the future of China’s leadership.
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Protests erupted throughout China this weekend over the country’s “zero covid” policy, which has led the government to implement strict lockdown and testing measures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
The protests were triggered by a botched response to a deadly fire in Urumqi, a city in the northwest of China. Ten people died after emergency responders couldn’t get close enough to the apartment building, and protesters blame lockdown-related measures for interfering with rescue efforts.
But the protests have grown to wider criticisms of the Chinese government, including calls for President Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party to step down. The treatment of Uyghurs by the state has also become a rallying cry for demonstrators. Lily Kuo, The Post’s China bureau chief, has been covering the protests. She breaks down why these protests are significant and what they could mean for the future of China’s leadership.
Transcript
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| 0:15.2 | Thanks for coming. |
| 0:28.2 | Over the weekend, protests erupted across China on a scale that the country hadn't seen in decades. |
| 0:35.7 | I was completely surprised. I mean, I've been coming China for years and when I saw the videos |
| 0:43.9 | of the protests in Shanghai, I for a second didn't believe that those were real. |
| 0:49.9 | Lily Quo is the China Bureau chief for the post. She's been covering protests in major cities |
| 0:55.9 | like Beijing and Shanghai and as these protests have spread to more rural areas. |
| 1:06.5 | At first, people were angry about China's zero COVID policy. The Chinese government |
| 1:12.8 | enforces very strict lockdown and testing rules, which they say is to prevent the spread of COVID. |
| 1:19.7 | But then the protests became about much more. This is really remarkable because in China, you know, |
| 1:27.2 | dissent is pretty controlled and put down quickly. There are still protests against specific policies, |
| 1:34.4 | but they're very rarely is protest against the leaders directly or the system. |
| 1:38.4 | From the newsroom of the Washington Post, this is Post Reports. I'm Ella Heizaddi. It's Monday, |
| 1:47.3 | November 28th. Today, what life has been like under zero COVID, the backlash against this policy, |
| 1:56.7 | and what these protests could mean for the future of China's leadership. |
| 2:00.8 | Lily, can you tell us about what led up to this moment? What set these protests off? |
| 2:13.0 | The immediate spark for these protests was a fire in a RMB the capital of Xinjiang on Thursday night. |
| 2:20.7 | There was a fire in this apartment building that engulfed the building and killed 10 people, |
| 2:26.4 | including three children. When the fire happened, there were videos that were circulating on social |
| 2:33.5 | media that showed the fire trucks at a distance to the building and the water that they were spring |
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